


Druid of the Bay

by kinoth



Series: Druid of the Bay [1]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: F/M, Gen, Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27684527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoth/pseuds/kinoth
Summary: A Worm AU quest running concurrently on QuestionableQuesting.Live quest: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/druid-of-the-bay-worm-au.13165/
Relationships: A man/his bird
Series: Druid of the Bay [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109864
Kudos: 42





	1. Hear the call / Answer the call

The past couple of months have... well, they’ve sucked. It was bad enough that your mom'd been getting even more deeply religious since your dad died, but to come home on your last day of high school, just as you were looking forward to going to Brockton University to an empty apartment and a five-page note in that spider-like scrawl her handwriting had become... Your stomach had clenched and felt heavy in your chest as you read and realized with slow-building horror she had packed up and just... _left_ you. The preacher she’d been listening to had claimed he was moving his church down to where the last sighting of the Golden Horde had been—you'd think that people would want to get _away_ from something that was claimed to be a biblical plague—but then again your mother’s logic had made less and less sense to you in the past five years.

You’d shut down some at that point—Uncle Josh had come by to check up on you, sure, but with him living halfway to Boston and being busy managing his tow business, well, in between the infrequent visits you’d mostly holed up in the apartment. Even though you’d been taking care of yourself since your father’s death, just being abandoned like that, thrown aside as if you didn’t matter...

You didn’t want to remember that period.

One tiny bright spot—or at least slightly less dark spot. Despite your mother’s wild break you weren’t in danger of being homeless and you had the trust your grandparents set up to thank for that. The constant conversations with the lawyer in charge of the trust had not helped your mental health in the slightest though. Not even seeing Glory Girl carry the glowing form of her mother one time had elicited more than a moment’s interest from you. Between the legalities and putting up a facade of normality during school you were _exhausted_. Entire weekends were spent blankly staring at walls, missed periods of time separated only when you somehow found the will to drag yourself to eat or shower.

Which meant you hadn’t been out exploring in quite a while.

And you were starting to get those _feelings_ again.

It had never been words—your mom had claimed she ‘talked’ to angels—but you’d had the feelings pretty much since you could remember. You found yourself drawn to all kinds of areas—the aftermath of cape fights, long abandoned buildings, sometimes an otherwise-unremarkable spot that would cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up or an atavistic jolt down your spine.

It was weird, when you spent those summers with Dad’s family out west that same sense would lead you to bushes filled with berries or a wounded animal to be nursed, or the perfect section in the meander of a stream to relax and swim. Back in Brockton you just found dead plants in abandoned courtyards or had goosebumps break out when looking over the debris of a cape clash.

It was the kind of stupidity that got you yelled at and grounded for being foolish in a city with multiple gangs, but once your dad was gone it was also one of the few things that’d let you get away from the increasingly unhinged ranting from your mom.

Wandering through the Bay normally helped—but you hadn’t done it for months. You walked the same paths every day, took the same buses. You ignored the _pull,_ the _itch_ of wanting to get out. You thought it was some of your mom’s crazy rubbing off on you—you’d wondered, bleakly, if you’d be having debates with Jesus and speaking in tongues—so you fought it off and drowned it in your despair. But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

Finally you couldn’t take it anymore.

The clothes you’d always worn for this still fit, the loose fabric and dark colors keeping you from standing out in the night. You’d stepped outside into the early autumn* air, closed your eyes and followed the tug you felt in your chest.

You had no idea how long you’d been out among the derelict buildings, clambering from ruined floor to floor, leaping across the dark chasms between roofs. For the first time in _forever_ you feel the blood pump in your veins and a tingle runs through your body. Your feet always find purchase no matter the terrain and your passage is smooth and almost silent. You’d dodged at least one Empire patrol moving through back alleys before the urge takes you up to the roof of a partially destroyed office building. Looking around you realize you’re pretty far north, the darkness of the Trainyard just visible between buildings. Edging past a tangle of steel that may have once been a billboard you lean over the edge and peer out. You’re high enough to get a bit of a breeze as you look around some more and notice a number of barrel fires in the area with either the homeless or Merchants warming themselves near them.

The tug you’d been feeling for the past week no longer pulled at you and instead settled warm and electric against your spine. Bringing a hand up to run through your hair some trick of the lights from downtown make it look like there’s a wispy, glowing trail from your fingers. Brockton’s air fills your lungs, the mixture of salt tang and grease telling you exactly how close you are to the docks. Someone’s tread—so faint you almost dismiss it as imagination—filters into your perception. The skin on your shoulders prickles and you hunch over and turn your head.

Instead of someone sneaking up on you, it’s more sounds— cries of pain, faint with distance—that had caused your hackles to rise. Moving over to the far side of the roof and looking down you see a confrontation is going on at one of the homeless camps you’d passed by earlier. From this high up it was impossib—no, you could just _barely_ make out the Merchant’s gang sign, the M with two lines airbrushed on the back of a jacket as the wearer moved past the fire and buried his boot in a homeless guy’s ribs while his flunkies laughed. It wasn’t the first time seeing something like this, your urban explorations had put you in positions like this before. You cringed a bit in sympathy as the ragged man on the ground puked his guts out. You’d always felt bad about seeing this, but short of having a gun you’d never be able to beat them all, and with it you’d just die when a cape caught you. There was no way for you to help.

Right?

That knot of warmth in your chest throbs and you stumble forward to put a hand on the short wall around the roof. As your hand touches the concrete something pulses in counterpoint from the building and beyond, a shudder running through you as you feel a request for help, a plea from something outside yourself. The knot almost _explodes_ , a heady feeling of _power_ surging though you and you realize that yes, there _was_ a way to help. Looking down see the skin of your hands shift and writhe, claws replacing your fingernails. Wordless voices urge you to call them forth to help you. Words that can crack the sky are written in fire in your mind’s eye.

You... you had the ability to help. To stop this.

Stepping up to the edge of the roof a steel pole roughly your height comes off to rest securely against your palm, the mysteriously clean scrap of fabric wrapped around it sized perfectly for a hastily tied bandana. There’s a sense of _approval_ from something as you crouch down and leap from the rooftop and before you can second guess or damn yourself for your stupidity your body shifts and writhes. Wind buffets your pinions as instincts you didn’t know you had steady your glide down to street level. It’s quickly clear that whatever facility you had with gliding doesn’t translate to landings as you try to flare your wings and change back—it _works_ , but your feet end up off the ground and there’s a loud _thump_ to mark your arrival. Jacket-guy and two of the others are far enough away and too involved in kicking someone while they’re down that it doesn’t matter, but one of the Merchants turns your way. Yellowed eyes widen as you strike your staff on the ground and the voices that have been clamoring for your attention howl in glee.

Two bodies rise from the dirt, one forming into a smaller fox-size with a long tail and the other a larger dog shapes as they leave divots behind. A pile of broken cinderblocks births a second, hulking dog, and the broken pallets and similar wood stacked for the oil drum fire shifts and creaks as a wooden housecat perches on it. None of the… summons? are finely-detailed, but their teeth and claws look plenty sharp.

Yellow-eyes stumbles back and his mouth opens even as a fifth body forms, this one from the smoke of the fire, a hazy-gray shape of an owl wrapped around a glowing green heart. With the first beat of its translucent wings it dives for the man, who throws his hands up to cover his face. All that he manages is an aborted scream. “Caaa[sup]aa[sup]aaa—[/sup] [/sup]”

As you move forward your summoned allies surge with you breaking into teams as they head towards the three remaining Merchants who have just begun to turn your way. The wooden cat darts ahead and scales the slowest to turn’s back before clawing at his unprotected head. The dog who followed uses the distraction to crash into the guy’s legs and bring him screaming to the ground.

The fox-dog pair square off with a skinny tweaker holding a bat. Baiting with its tail, the fox hops to the side to dodge a swing and the rock-dog lunges and wraps its jaws around one arm and pulls him off-balance.

That leaves jacket-guy to you. He’s bigger than you realized up close, the open jacket showing that he’s shirtless underneath with lots of muscle. A swath of acne dots his face all the way up to his receding hairline. A knife you hadn’t notices is in his hand and he points it at you. “Fuck your cape shit you bitch, I’ma fuckin’ _wreck_ you!” he bellows, lurching forward.

One of the words that burned in your mind passes softly through your lips almost like a prayer as your left arm swings up trailing luminous brown smoke from your fingertips. Clenching your hand causes a wave of soil to surround the ‘roid-raging gang member and stops him in his tracks. You feel like you could hold him there as long as you could hold your hand up but you need to deal with him in case your... minions—or _whatever_ they are—aren’t enough.

Planting your staff in the ground you swing both hands up violently, snarling the same word of power. The pillars of earth that erupt this time are staggered, bouncing the idiot from one to the other, rocks rebounding off his head. The second hit knocks him off his feet and he collapses under a blanket of wet dirt and clay, groaning but unmoving.

Snatching your staff back you turn and find that the rest of the battle completed without your input; the rough-hewn faces of your summons are all oriented on you.

The larger dog summons each sit on a Merchant’s back to keep them compliant. The cat and fox are doubled up on the bat-guy while the strangely glowing owl perches serenely on yellow-eyes’ head. The man’s face and arms have red welts and shallow cuts, but somehow his clothes are completely unaffected. The homeless guy that was being attacked is still lying on his side and clutching his ribs as he wheezes, but doesn’t seem to be bleeding externally.

Looking around you can see that all of the nearby homeless have their attention on you, but no one is willing to speak or move closer. In fact, as you look at them they move back out of the light from their various fires and refuse to meet your gaze. On the other hand no sirens tells you that nobody is willing to get the cops or the PRT involved quite yet.

You know— _somehow_ —that your summoned animals will only last a couple of minutes more. Taking a deep breath and checking that the cloth you’d tied around your mouth is still hiding your face you also pull the hood of your jacket forward a bit to try and keep yourself shadowed. Before the silence breaks you figure you need to plan what you’re going to do before questions start to be asked and law enforcement gets involved.

You… you freeze in indecision. Should you just go? Waiting for either cops or capes seems like a bad idea, they’ll start asking for things you don’t have—cape names, the _reason you stepped in_ …

A gurgle from the guy who’d been getting beat snaps you out of it, you’re rolling him onto his side a moment later. Your throat goes dry when you try to say ‘hey’, so you swallow and try again. “Are you—“ Bloody foam surrounds his mouth and has cut through the dirt caking his cheek and his breathing is ragged.

Amazingly, Winslow had a decent set of health classes that taught some first-responder stuff. _Un_ fortunately it focused almost solely on trying to help people who were overdosing. Other than trying to clear his airway—and there was no way you’d be sticking a finger in this guys’ mouth—you’re out of your element. One hand curls into the dirt and another word throbs against the back of your eyes, unfurling like a fern leaf uncurling.

The light around your hand is green, an aura rather than a trail. You speak the word written in in fire and touch his forehead. The glow sinks into his skin, reappearing moments later as deep green floral, vine-like whorls shimmering under his skin.

Recovery isn’t instant, but after just a few seconds his breathing is easier. You stand up and quickly move over to everyone else, patting them down and tossing weapons far away into the shadows. Despite their complaints, none of the Merchants seem to be willing to fight back with cape-created animals holding them down, or a likely concussion and a hundred pounds of dirt in the case of the balding leader.

Two-hundred odd dollars, eight glass pipes, and what seems like an entire bale of weed later you’re gripping your staff and feeling your grasp on the summoned bodies fading. Luckily, your debate on whether to crack skulls is stopped when the homeless guy gets your attention as he manages to get to his feet and calls out to the watchers. He’s still bent over and favoring his ribs and the glowing tinge to his skin is a lighter grass-green. Moments later the Merchants are being watched by something like a dozen guys, some armed with the ganger’s own weapons.

Walking closer to you but still keeping something of a healthy distance, the homeless guy scrubs the sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing over his mouth and swallows nervously. “It’s okay, boss, you don’t have to stick around.” He puts his hands up and winces when you turn your head towards him. “Or stay! That’s fine too, whatever you want, man!” The smile on his face is wide and fake but his eyes show just how scared he is.

Shaking your head you look back as the earthy bodies of the animals collapse and fall apart, the wooden cat bursting into a pile of sticks and other debris. There’s no magical words demanding to be spoken, but a lifetime of emotional browbeating about cleaning up after yourself gives you the irrational desire to do something.

Once again your staff rises and falls.

Grass ripples out from your feet, earth shifting and melding to repair the divots and piles in your sight. A skeletal bush just within the circle of the firelight leafs again anew. You nod, biting down on your own noise of surprise even as everyone around shouts in surprise. The staff, as if knowing it was no longer needed, flakes away to rust as you take a step forward, then two. People scramble to move out of your way long before you get there. You’re quickly engulfed by the shadows even as you still feel the weight of eyes on you.

The trip back to your apartment is a blur—literally a blur, as you shifted into something quadrupedal and raced through back alleys and slipped through pools of shadows on badly-lit streets. Once again you find that your instincts in a form other than your human one are decent, if not perfect. You had to pay enough attention to what you were doing that you weren’t able to lose yourself in introspection of what had just happened. Once you’d morphed back into yourself and stumbled into your bathroom to stare at yourself in the mirror all of the past… hour? of insanity finally catches up with you.

This time you’re looking down at your hands against the edge of your sink. Once again your arms shift, this time sprouting feather tips before being swallowed back into your skin. Under the harsh lighting and silence of your bathroom you have the time to focus on the feelings you get—a pulse in your chest echoes down to the tips of your fingers and toes, a not-quite-heartbeat throbbing in counterpoint to your own.

You meet your own gaze in the mirror, the Native American guy looking back at you seeming just a bit less worn-down and haggard than yesterday, if just as tired. It might be a trick of the light but the pulsing you feel is echoed by a spark in your eyes. Pulling on that pulse causes fur to bubble up over your skin at one moment and scales the next. With focus and feeling behind it you pull once more and your point of view shifts down and your hands morph into paws. Hopping back up to try and look into the mirror you’re confronted with something… canid- _like_. You couldn’t even begin to match yourself up to a particular breed of dog, and unless you’re seeing things your eyes are actually slitted like a _cat’s_ instead.

Another pull and you have to flap your wings before you slam into the wall. Perching on the countertop and waddling forward your claws click as you eye yourself. Once again you’re not any particular kind of bird you know of; you’re a patchwork of different things, hawk-billed and owl-feathered.

With the third attempt you focus more on a specific look and in a whirl of shrinking feathers and flesh tones emerge as a housecat. Stalking even closer to the mirror, at first glance you resemble the tabby you’d had as a kid but a second look shows obvious differences in the coat. You _do_ look more like a regular cat without weird additions, though. Close enough to pass as a real cat instead of some unholy abomination.

Changing back and scrabbling off the bathroom counter you squint and concentrate on looking human but different. The result is not pretty at all. The only way you could be confused with human is hiding in some deep shadows, and with a cloak or something besides. You’re bipedal, but look more like some kind of Silent-Hill-esque shambling horror with too-short arms and excessive hair. On second thought you look like a neanderthalized version of person, except with a hunchback and claws. You _feel_ like you could bench-press a car, though.

Shifting back to yourself as you stumble out of the bathroom and over to a chair you cover your eyes and try to make sense of what’s happened. After seeing what summoning did to the ground you’re not about to tear up the floor or sacrifice the dining room table. Besides, the fact that you can summon things is almost an afterthought, what with the number of Tinkers who throw out robot minions and some new Master making the news every couple of months. Before you can even attempt to marshal your thoughts in a different direction something wells up from the floor through your body, a mixture of relief and appreciation that would have dropped you to the floor if you weren’t already sitting. The feelings fade after a moment leaving you pleasantly tired. Whatever your power is it hums through you, barely contained in your skin—passing your hand in front of your face shows the same faint light trails that you’d seen back on the roof.

When you finally pull your attention away from the lightshow you’re putting on it’s going on 3am. You shed clothes on your way to bed; sense can be had _after_ you wake up. You’re pretty sure it’s Sunday at this point—and if not you’re completely willing to miss your first class. You fall into bed…

AN: This comprises the first two quest posts, along with all options voted on added in.


	2. Awakening Your Inner World / Incarnation

…immediately opening your inner ones.

It’s night and you look up at the stars. You don’t see them much in Brockton; even with as run-down as much of the city is there’s still enough lights to drown out the night sky. The summers you’d spent out west though—out in the country you’d been able to look up and see the pale jewels glittering against the ink-dark backdrop of space.

What you see above you is not Earth’s night sky. There’s no pale swath of the Milky Way to bisect the cold black above you. Instead of small pinpricks of light the stars are larger and in a myriad of colors. They shimmer and blink, some even moving as you watch, slowly swirling in patterns you can’t make sense of. Two large bodies twine around each other, visible solely from the luminous arcs that trail from them, glittering like scales in the starlight.

It's the sound of water that finally breaks you from your contemplation of a sky that is not yours. You sit up, the rough blanket unfamiliar but somehow also recognizably _yours_ and look around you. Despite only having starlight to see you’re not as blind as you feared. Looking around you can see the bedroll at your feet, a firepit in the center of the clearing with the guttering embers of a fire, and a spring with silvery, luminescent water all near you in this circle of scabby, half-dead trees.

On the far side of the smoldering embers lay nothing but packed dirt and the other half of the ring of dead trees that marks this space. Due to the lack of growth you can see in-between the dead trunks. Your campsite appears to be on a hill—or maybe a mountain—that is part of a longer chain of similar rounded peaks trailing off as far as you can see. Sight as much as feeling tells you that the spotty forest and scrub you can make out is just as dead and diseased as the trees around you were, but the majority of your attention is on the ground itself. Something about the peaks brings to mind bits of prose you’d read where mountains are described as parts of a whole—the ‘spine of the world’, or ‘bones of the earth’. The ridges that lay off in the distance hide something that sleeps below them, you can feel the vibration of _something_ below you through your feet. Your bare toes curl into the dirt as right after that revelation you get the feeling that you’ll get no more details for now. 

Even though you know you should focus, every new thing you look at seems to demand your attention and warrant further study. Nevertheless you tear your eyes away from the distance and turn back to the glade you’re standing in. While the sound of the spring filling was what originally pulled your attention back down to terrestrial matters, it’s the fire that seems the most important. You know you have no matches or lighter handy, not even flint and steel come to hand when you pat yourself down. In fact you’re only wearing rough pants without pockets, your feet and chest bare. Even as you look down at the bedroll hoping to find a pack you’d overlooked the trees sway, branches moving like grasping fingers, animate even though no wind is blowing. The nearest bough—a sad, leafless thing—dips in front of you as if bowing and with a sharp _crack_ drops at your feet. 

After contemplating the movements of the trees that surround you, you drag the branch to the fpit and pause before throwing it on. You might be a city boy, but you know enough to realize that you need to start with smaller twigs and not just smother the embers with a large log. You make quick work of stripping the smaller bits off and placing them amongst the coals before turning to the larger sections. Without tools, you’d worried that breaking the branch into manageable sections would be difficult work but you accomplish it easily, the wood snapping in your hands. 

Once everything is in the firepit, you expect it to take a while for the logs to finally catch, but instead the smaller blaze you’d started with the tinder spreads to the logs immediately, throwing an incredible amount of light for such a small fire. The tinder you used doesn’t seem to have burnt, nor do the logs begin to char; a faint smell of… weed? meth? ...some kind of drugs wafting away and replaced by woodsmoke.

With the fire now refueled and the clearing now illuminated you can make out details where you couldn’t before. The trees demarcating the circle around you have grown leaves when you weren’t looking, buds and new leaves glistening in the light. Along with the foliage, the far side of the clearing is lit where it had been wreathed in shadow before. Things that should have been visible even in the starlight are now revealed.

On the far side of the fire lays the Beast, the Trough, and the Tree.

Sucking in a breath you try to make sense of how you know this, but it’s just so _obvious_ to you. The Beast lounges, its constantly-changing shape warming itself by the fire and looking back at you, knowingly, with your own eyes. The Trough lays dry and the area around it is empty, but you feel the many eyes of spirits in the woods watching to see if you will offer them succor. The Tree is a small thing, but even from the other side of the fire you can see the runes written on its few branches and realize that you know them all.

You walk forward and seat yourself cross-legged on the other side of the fire, pressing your hands to the soft moss. The Beast shifts and morphs itself upright and sits on scaly haunches, while half a dozen patchwork, indistinct glowing forms slowly filter out of the treeline to cluster around the Trough. The Tree merely waits, although the secrets it offers you curl about your shoulders and whisper in your ears. 

Chuffing and shaking a suddenly leonine mane, the Beast stalks forward even as the head stretches forward on a serpentine neck. When it’s close enough for its breath to ruffle your hair its form shifts and flows into a mirror image as it settles across from you, knees nearly touching.

No, not quite a mirror image. Muscles in your jaw clench at the sight of feathers in the Beast’s hair; you will _not_ be mocked in your own dreams! Before you speak and break the silence of this place, however, the firelight shines brighter and reveals that the Beast does not wear feathers in its hair. The feathers _are_ its hair, and what looked like smooth skin instead glimmers dully, the edges of scales catching the light. Lips pull away to reveal a smile that wouldn’t be out of place on a shark were it not for the addition of fangs. It is clear that while the Beast may wear the _shape_ of a person, it is clearly not one.

Raising a clawed hand, the predator in human guise pulls its hand into a fist, the wet sound of flesh parting beneath its own claws too audible to your ears before holding the dripping hand out expectantly. You swallow thickly and bring your hand up to match, the shift of nails to claws easier in this place. The wound is painless, barely an echo of pressure to tell you you’ve bloodied yourself. 

The Beast’s smile widens impossibly more but feels friendlier now, almost approving. The two of you clasp your hands together, palms squelching together. A pulse you’re increasingly familiar with synchronizes between you and some of the questions you’d had are clarified. You’re not yet ready to _truly_ be the Beast, but its heartbeat thrums within you. One day your heartbeat and it will be one.

As soon as you release your grip a shimmer and shift has the Beast striding back to its lounging spot on four legs before sprawling out and relaxing.

Almost immediately the brightest of the glowing, indistinct spirits hovers before you. You turn your palm up and it settles on your fingers, mindless of the blood. The glow brightens while in contact with you and again an exchange of information occurs. When the… totem spirit? genius loci? animal spirit? has both imparted knowledge and drank of your power it lifts off and perches on the edge of the Trough.

Turning your attention to the Tree you find that there’s no need for either of you to move. The same words of fire that have echoed in your mind tell you that for simple price of an offering from the spring, the Tree will grow larger and additional secrets will be revealed to you. No more, no less.

You stand and move over to the spring. It’s a small thing, perhaps three feet in diameter and lined with stones with shimmering, silvery liquid trickling down from a crack in a rock. A plain silver bowl is leaning against the rock and you know—in the same way you’ve known everything since you woke up here—that the liquid here is just the right amount to fill that bowl.

You dip the bowl under the surface and watch as the bowl fills and leaves only dregs behind. There’s enough for _one_ of the three you see before you. You know there is no way to divide it between them, as the Beast will not deign to share its tribute, and that which nourishes the physical may not reveal the mental. 

A gentle thud from your chest tells you you’ll soon awake back in Brockton Bay, but before that time you make a single offering. 

While the other two had given you information, the Tree promised secrets but explained nothing. Still, you’d used it when you stopped ‘roid-dude and healed that other guy. While the spring would take a while to fill again, you don’t feel like this is a once-only kind of thing. 

So you take a gamble, pour the silvery fluid around the base of the Tree and watch as it grows taller, three new branches nearly exploding out. New runes—pictograms, really—are edged in gold around the bark of the tree. The knowledge worms it way between your ears even as you stumble toward the bedroll. Your exhausted collapse coincides with your eyes snapping open back in the real world.

You feel incredibly well-rested, probably better than any time in your memory—even when your mother was still around. Even as good as you feel there _is_ a feeling that you’re missing something that would take your sleep from good to great. Nevertheless, after a quick shower you dress and start poking at your phone. You’re three searches deep trying to figure out a likely place to attempt this whole ‘incarnation’ thing the spirit had taught you when you realize that you should probably have a separate phone. And not have it at your apartment. And randomize your path to and from… 

Yeah, you could drown in paranoia. Rather than let it freak you out you take your cash from last night and head out to the corner shop and buy the cheapest disposable phone they have. Slipping into an alleyway you look around for obvious cameras or onlookers before tucking yourself next to a dumpster and _shift_ , taking flight as (hopefully) the most anonymous pigeon you could make yourself. You wing skyward, finding a random empty rooftop before transforming back and doing some research. The basics of the ritual are clear in your mind but an inappropriate food offering or having someone interrupt would... well, the _best_ result would probably involve having the animal in question explode, and you don’t need a senseless death like that on your conscience. Nor the maddened, possessed beast that would be the more likely result.

Another hour of research and a stop into a hardware store gets you all you need except for the most important thing. Some time in the nearest park with some berries attracts a multitude of birds, but none are the raven you’d hoped for. Even a crow would be better—you’re not making a pigeon your familiar, no matter how useful it’d be in blending in. Whipping a blueberry off to one side you slip a couple to smaller birds while the seagulls fight. Maybe a seagull would be a good idea. You read something about how a seagull would be willing to fight God for a stale bagel. A magic one’d probably square up with Lung. Might even win, who knows?

Flicking a second berry to keep the fight going in the distance you turn back and eye a grackle irritatedly. “Don’t suppose I could get you to hunt a raven down for me, could I?” You blink when it tilts it head, making the blue highlights shimmer in the sun. A songbird-trill comes from its beak and you’re sure it _points_ to one of the sparrows nearby. “Uh no, that’s not even close.” Looking around to make sure no one’s close enough to hear you talking you toss a few more berries out and pat the bench next to you. “If you understand me come up here.” The grackle joins you and takes a berry of its own from the little container sitting open as you wonder if you’re crazy, talking to this bird. “None of you here are a raven. Do you know other calls?” Only three tries later the small bird gives a respectable _kraa_ and you nod. “Yeah, that’s it. Raven.” The grackle scarfs down three berries and makes noises like an electrical transformer. You get the sense that if you could understand it there’d be a lot of bitching for some reason. It flies off and you feel weirdly hopeful that there was actually understanding there. 

You’re rewarded a couple of minutes later when the grackle stoops down on you closely followed by a dark shape with close to twice its wingspan. The raven lands on the bench just out of arm’s reach and seems incredibly unafraid, its blue eyes looking over you. Must be a juvenile. The grackle, on the other hand, has hidden itself next to you and is croaking at the new arrival quickly like it’s still fast-talking the larger bird. You intervene by holding out berries in both hands. Suddenly you feel shy about it. “So you see, I was looking for a raven…”

Ten minutes later and you’re back in the space you picked out with the raven sitting on a broken piece of machinery. You’re not sure how long this warehouse has been abandoned, but the roof has caved in to give you the sky view you need without the worries of someone being able to see and interrupt The fire is lit, you have water in a stone—terracotta, really—bowl, and you’ve cleared out an area big enough to comfortably sit. The words of the chant rise up differently than spells do; you can feel something—or some _things_ urging you along through whispers rather than the fire-written words demanding release in your mind. 

The first part of the ritual is calling out a spirit willing to bond with your chosen animal. Placing your food offering on the fire and letting the smoke begin to call it into existence you start to chant. The raven hops closer as a glow that has nothing to do with the fire sparks and begins to grow. You’re not sure how long it takes—twenty minutes, an hour?—before you’re able to coax the spirit down in front of the transfixed bird. A quick _snap_ of the beak and it disappears into the raven’s gullet and the bird begins to shake even as you drip blood into the water and anoint the raven with it. As the water runs over it the bird’s feathers are limned in blue and its eyes echo the glow of the spirit it’s now bonded with.

As you and your new familiar get used to the merger you sit back and close your eyes, breathing deeply. The raven wings for a higher spot and you can feel the beginnings of a link forming, first the mildest of feelings, but quickly turning into something like language…

_< we hunt?>_

_> no, watch the area.<_

A croak in the affirmative later and your breathing evens out more. Pushing thoughts of why or how your powers came about you feel yourself meld with the earth. Your awareness broadens and you can discern things near you. Over there a group of small animals—raccoons—maybe in a crawlspace, a bit further faster, smaller life signs, birds of some type since you feel them up in the air. As you change concentration you start to feel something else. Small clusters of things… grasses, moss, the twisted skeletons of bushes and buds of trees that have found root between the cracks and crevices. Everything around, even off in the distance past where you can accurately sense carries a feeling of not-quite-sickness about it. If you were talking about humans you’d say it was some kind of general malaise. The building you’re in still has the stink of burnt oil and diesel hanging over it despite being abandoned for years; you consider that maybe the whole area is contaminated? You slide back into your body and stand up, checking your phone. You’ve spent almost four hours here, although you don’t know how much of that was the ritual and how much was the meditation. An idle thought causes a staff of concrete and steel to sprout from the ground and into your hand, orange streaks of rust running like woodgrain along its length. While you know—somehow—that the gesture isn’t needed, you once again bring the staff up and strike it against the broken concrete.

The spell works differently than you expected; the ripples _do_ fix the floor and repair the most blatant issues with the walls, but the roof remains partially collapsed. Some of the rubble disappears—broken glass visibly shifts back to sand while broken metal flakes away to rust. There’s no explosion of grass though, no sudden blooming of bushes.

You shift into a raven and fly up to meet your familiar, who inspects you curiously. 

_< you not me but me?>_

Twisting your head comes naturally, but the little smile you want to give doesn’t translate at all. _> i change forms. i will show you to my roost<_ You take off only to wheel about as you catch something out of the corner of your eye. 

The outside of the warehouse now blooms with life, and upheaval of asphalt and concrete making way for unusual plantlife. Leaves shimmer with the iridescent rainbows that normally mark oil slicks and vines that look like a hybrid between wood and metal cling to the walls. Your exclamation of surprise comes out as a deep croak and you have to beat your wings furiously to keep from impacting the walls from your stupefaction. Banking and gaining altitude you make haste away, you don’t have any way to reverse what you did and have no decent explanation; the magic the tree offers you doesn’t seem to give you full access to all of the intricacies of the details.

After making your way back to your apartment you open a window to let your familiar in, who promptly makes themself at home and begins setting up a nest. While various shiny things get appropriated you sit down and try to figure out this whole cape costume thing. Protectorate capes—and New Wave—all have fancy designed stuff, but beyond that you have no clue what to do. Lung supposedly wears just a mask and whatever pair of pants he rolled out of bed with. Kaiser wears armor that he like, grows or something, and you read something a while back that had a picture of Circus wearing stuff so skintight you could tell they had an outie bellybutton. Plenty of other capes wear what seems to be random clothes, though, or at least nothing that you couldn’t find from a Halloween costume shop or a thrift store or something. 

The powers you’ve shown are nature-based, so your first thought is something similarly natural. It’d be a cheat—and maybe a bit stereotyped—to resort to native clothing, but a bodysuit definitely isn’t you, and armor doesn’t feel right either. Your dad never really wanted to discuss much about where he came from, always mentioning that he ‘left the Rez behind a long time ago’ before changing the subject. Even the family he kept in touch with didn’t dress traditionally, for all that they lived in what you always considered the country. 

For lack of a better idea you look up traditional Native American clothing of New England and feel your eyebrows crawl up your face. There was no way in any religion’s hell that you’d run around in just a breechcloth. That’s… that’s a fucking _tea-towel_ with a belt! Now a deerskin mantle with matching pants would work—and if you did that kind of human-like shapeshifting the Beast managed you could probably skip the shirt… a bit more searching finds a leather wholesaler over in Hyannis and a number of craft sellers out west that sell buckskins.

You’re tempted to go that route even though it’d tap out the rest of your cash but the first and most important part is the mask. No need to expose who you are and invite anyone who’s feeling feisty to knock on your door asking for a fight, right?

Shapeshifting seems like the obvious answer, but while you make headway morphing your head into various animals; sprouting muzzles, scales, antlers, and sharp teeth, you can’t seem to _hold_ it for longer than a minute or so. You’re able to hold an entire _form_ —you shift into a raccoon and wander around the apartment for close to half an hour just to test—but partial shapeshifting seems beyond your grasp at the moment.

So you fall back to the idea of getting a simple domino mask; you’ll practice the whole shapeshifting thing ad get better at it. You can pick up a mask pretty much anywhere, the cape thing is so in-your-face that celebrities have been showing wearing both eye masks and mouth-covering masks with logos and statements on them. But the idea of wearing a plasticky-feeling mask just doesn’t sit right with you. Even cotton doesn’t feel right. 

Your raven hops from the floor to the chair you’re sitting on (flying apparently gets tricky in confined spaces) and makes a soft rumble. _< why sad?>_

_> i need to hide my face<_

_< what is face?>_

That startles a laugh out of you and you try to explain the idea of both what a face is and hiding them to the bird. No matter how much your communication _sounds_ like speech in your head you’re communicating via feelings and thoughts to a bird-spirit hybrid. 

It’s the spirit part that finally wins out. After talking around in circles until you’re pretty sure your familiar understands not just your face, but why it shouldn’t be seen with you when you don’t have a mask on, you’re reminded that it’s not just a bird when it suggests you pull one from a tree. 

_> pull _what _? <_

_< go to tree, ask tree. tree give part-self, you shape tree-self to ‘mask’>_

Being pecked at until you transform gives you new appreciation of the term ‘henpecked’. 

The raven takes you to one of the run-down parks nearby and lands in the middle of a copse of trees. The familiar is already smart enough to realize that you need to be hidden (or as it translates in your head, ’sneak-sneak’) before you shift forms. You turn human again and at the bird’s urging place your hand on a nearby oak tree. What follows is almost a mental exercise as you push your desire for a mask into the tree and the bark shifts and spits until you have a full-face mask. It looks a bit rough, with bark edging the eye and mouth holes and whorls and knots covering the rest of the surface, but just placing it to your face without any straps to keep it there fills your nose with the smell of wood. It feels _correct_.

You fly back to your apartment and make a quick dinner. You’re not 100% certain what you’re supposed to do; the few interviews you’ve come across from capes all say they ‘couldn’t stand by’ or ‘felt like they needed to make a difference’. You… don’t. Or at least you feel no immediate desire to go out and punch faces just to punch faces. The lingering feeling you felt back in the warehouse has stayed with you a bit. If anything you’d say that Brockton as a whole had something disgusting under the surface—almost like an abscess. Every time you step out onto the ground you feel it asking for your assistance to lance it and let the evil out, but you have no idea what that evil even _is_. The gangs? Hunting them down would be close to impossible, but an attempt could be started. Is it cleaning out the wrecks in the harbor? No amount of turning into a dog or a bird is going to help there, and you know of no magic words to rust them away that quickly. Perhaps it’s _everything_ , and neither you nor it have any clue on how to start.

Shaking your head you snag your keyring from the raven’s nest and point a finger when it starts to object. You might have a mask and powers now, but you also have school in the morning. Even though the university had been delayed opening because of the explosion from the chemisty building, you’d been like a zombie through the first couple of weeks of classes, mumbling your way through icebreakers and getting-to-know-you bullshit while turning in barely average work. Your dad would probably get on your case about how you’re capable of better. You knew you were as well, but just like you weren’t the same kind of bookish person as before his death, the gut-punch of being abandoned by your mom had hit you pretty hard as well. 

Settling in to your bed you decide to do a little better in classes as well as look in to the exploded building on campus. Maybe if you have time you’ll check in on that homeless encampment and make sure the Merchants didn’t come back…


	3. Sniffing Around / The Floor Was Lava

Once again you awaken refreshed. If nothing else, you’d thank whatever gave you your powers for the ability to wake up and actually feel well-rested. While getting yourself ready for classes, you and Huginn have a bit of a back-and-forth about what the raven will be doing while you’re away. Rather than acting overwatch, you tell him to generally stretch his wings over the city and also give him directions to check out the homeless camp you’d hit that first night. It’s completely possible (and honestly, really probable) that everyone had scattered in case Skidmark or the Protectorate capes showed up, but if it’s suddenly become a battlefield you’d feel at least a little bad.

A quick test confirms that you can, indeed, shapeshift with your backpack and all its contents, but you forego that today so you can scout out good locations. The last thing you want is to miss something obvious like a camera—there’s a reason you’ve been keeping to back alleys and the like. 

Your first class is history, located fairly far back in campus, and it takes you past the roped-off carcass of the Anders building. Before your upgrades it was just the reason that classes had been delayed a bit; now you can smell a faint scent of old blood—and there’s something weird about it as well. It smells _sour_ , somehow. Slowing your walk you act like you’re doing something on your phone and check over the place out of the corner of your eye. It’s no longer swarming with cops and inspectors or construction workers or whatever to make sure the rest of the building doesn’t collapse now but it’s seemed as busy as a beehive for the past week or so. Now that it’s empty—besides the security guards keeping people away from the caution tape—there’s no obvious bodies or suspicious stains visible. You make a note to come back later as something a bit smaller and less conspicuous to have a closer look around.

You’re still ten minutes early to class so you open your phone to find that you’d received a text from Diego. You didn’t have a huge number of friends back at Winslow, but there were a number of other misfits who didn’t fit into any of the common gang-related or racial groups and you all looked out for each other—or at least tolerated each other better than most. Diego is a junior this year and pretty plugged-in to the general flow of school gossip. The group chat you had is filled with a number of updates: The Empire wannabes (and some actual members) had started a couple of fights recently, but it’d slowed down after all the asian kids in the freshman class started wearing ABB colors overnight. There was a rumor that a Merchant dealer had started recruiting among the stoners and there’d be a third gang presence soon. Oh, and apparently some ‘wannabe model basic bitch whitegirl’ (who you vaguely remember) and one of the track girls tried shit with one of the varsity cheerleaders and got smacked down, so they’d started a reign of terror on the other underclassmen instead. You asked why you’d care and found out that the _other_ girl in their mean girl squad was Madison.

It’s a little sad, you remember helping the tiny girl find her classes, then getting a ‘Hi, Chepi!’ when you passed in the hallways. You weren’t actually like _friends_ or anything, and rarely exchanged more than a few words, but you also can’t imagine a shrimp like her managing to put any kind of fear in _anyone_. Diego suggests you stop by after school one day to see everything—sounds like he’s lonely.

Class starts before you’re able to do more than offer a noncommittal ‘maybe’ when Allen, your TA, bursts through the door with a bellowed ‘Morning!’ The guy is a huge fucking ham, but a good instructor.

Monday classes are done by around 2, so once you’re done for the day you wander campus looking for decent hidden spots. You’re passing by the rear of the Anders building when you overhead someone talking on their phone nearby. You slow down and listen in as you turn a corner and lean against the wall.

“—ing obvious, but the original plans didn’t _have_ a basement level. And all the rubble settled down a lot farther than it should.”

“...tell En to look at it later tonight. I’ve got class, be back after.”

Peeking back you see a person with long, dark hair push off from one of the covered entrances of the building opposite and head deeper into campus. Making a note that you might have company later you use one of the hiding spots you found and shift into a bird before checking in on Huginn. The raven’s response of ‘found big human nest’ just confuses you.

After flying over to the site of the trashbarrel fire you’re _still_ confused. What was at first a churned-up mudpit—and after you’d used magic, a grassy field—is now a full-on encampment. Debris has been piled up to form walls around the plot as close to twenty homeless have set up tents and are sitting around with bare feet on the still-lush grass. The bush that you’d brought back to life is now about as tall as a person and at least ten feet wide; somebody has an old plastic bag and looks to be picking things off of it.

The jacket from the one Merchant dude is up on a pole with the ‘M’ slashed through, like some kind of captured battle standard.

It’s a strange little place; you wouldn’t _quite_ go so far as to say it’s an armed encampment, but for all you know they all _are_ packing knives under their clothes. It’s certainly much more organized than you’ve ever seen. Not actually military, but things are actually laid out rather than haphazardly strewn around.

You continue to watch for a half hour or so and see the group turn away at least three others due to lack of camping space; it appears they’re trying to preserve at least some open areas and not crowd everything out.

As it turns dark you head back to your apartment and eat something before returning to campus. You land on the roof of the damaged building and shift into a raccoon as you work your way down the floors.

The Anders Lab was donated by Richard Anders over a decade ago. Since Medhall’s headquartered out of Brockton, it’s no surprise they splashed their money around to put their names on things.

_Supposedly_ , in addition to having lab space for some of the upper-level chemistry classes the building also housed researchers that worked for Medhall. Some of the rumors going around on social media say that the explosion was done by people protesting animal experimentation, as they had a celebration protest shortly after people were allowed back on campus. Medhall never denied that at least _some_ experimentation was done, but _has_ claimed that the only research being done at the University location was cancer research being done on mice.

The explosion took out about a third of the left-hand front of the building and seems to have come from ground level or so—the top floors are more-or-less undamaged but have been stripped of all equipment and the like. The smell of blood is faint in these areas as well.

There’s no power, but a look inside one of the open elevator cars shows that there is indeed one basement level listed, so after an additional fruitless search of the ground floor you find a stairwell down and take it.

As soon as you crack the door the blood smell is much more pungent. It’s gone old and dried but still manages to tweak your senses like smelling vinegar when you expect wine. The damage is much more extensive here; desks and equipment is broken, blackened with fire and strewn around, glass is everywhere. Glass-walled containers (cages, you guess?) are cracked and broken.

You get closer to what was probably ground zero and realize that under the dirt and rubble is another basement level. Shifting larger and digging a bit opens enough of a hole to realize that whatever exploded came from _underneath_ the basement floor. Everything collapsed on top of it afterwards and buried it.

Once you worm your way down to the next floor the rank odor is almost overwhelming. There’s almost no light at all—somehow _this_ floor has power, but all of the overhead lights have been shattered. A couple of the emergency exit lights are running and between that and light from broken monitors and LCD screens of equipment it barely provides enough light for you until you shift into a cat for increased night vision. The space looks to be bigger than the floor plan of the building above it, with a large area that looks like it had been fenced-in before being buried in dirt, as well as cages in one of the rooms.

_Large_ cages.

Much too large to hold mice or rats, and honestly the spaces between bars look like most cats could worm out as well. The bloodstains are worst by the big cage area, but these holding pens are the next bad. Now that you’re closer and becoming numb to the scent of blood, you can also sense the thick smell of urine and bile, as well as aromas that speak of both fear and anger. There were dogs here, and the torture that happened is written in the smells all around you.

Moving through the rooms, again most of the equipment is in disarray, with computer monitors shattered and lab equipment you have no name for—centrifuges here, some kind of microscope there—thrown to the floor. 

You move towards what should be the back of the building above and are able to pick out different scents. You can’t discern numbers, but easily more than twenty different dogs were in this area at some point. Following the scent trails brings you to a heavy door. There’s blood on the keypad and wall next to it but a tiny sliver of light shows that it’s not closed. Nosing it open reveals concrete tunnels beyond, with pipes running along one side. Rushing sounds from the pipes sound like steam and underlying the more recent blood and fear there’s dank, wet mold and sewage smells.

You head back in to check other trails—a number lead to a blank wall towards the center of the floor and you once again eye bloodsplatter on both the floor and handprints on the wall. You’re considering shifting back to human to look for a hidden latch when you hear a noise echoing from the other side. Changing into a rat you move around the corner and into the shadows of an overturned desk.

A metalllic sound—loud against the otherwise silent building—is replaced by heavy breathing. “Is that enough?” a man’s voice pants.

“Barely. Let me.... there.” Female.

The intruders are attempting to be stealthy, but the headlamps they’re using renders any quiet sneaking completely moot. It takes a couple of minutes for them to pass into your view. You can’t see their faces due to the halo of light shining from their foreheads, but judging by the glow from her skin in the light girl is white. The guy’s wearing long sleeves and gloves, but he appears to be darker-skinned than the girl at least.

“Li—” the guy starts before being cut off by his companion. “Fine. What is that _smell_?”

The blonde’s nose wrinkles even as she moves from computer to computer and pokes at them. “Blood.”

“It’s not _just_ blood, there’s something else.”

Pulling a screwdriver from the satchel at her side the woman starts unscrewing something. “Wet dog. Don’t ask.” She pauses and looks at the guy. “The boss just wants to see if there’s anything we can get off of computers or documents. Don’t worry about what it is, just pick up any paper that’s not burnt or wet.”

You watch as the two work, the guy shifting file cabinets around to get to drawers and the woman pulling silver boxes out of computers. 

“Glad she’s not here.”

“She’d be _murderous_. It’s hard enough keeping her from going after the rings more than she does.”

“Wait, _more?_ ”

“You seriously thought she told you everything?”

“...we’ll be talking about this later.”

A shifting in the air brings the sewer-scent back to you. At first you’re only able to guess that someone else has arrived by the softest of noises. It’s a stroke of luck when you shift from one hiding spot to another and you’re able to see the figure clinging to the ceiling.

The two looters look to have finished up and start making their way back to the stairwell they found. The watcher doesn’t _appear_ to be about to ambush them. You settle in to wait; the two were already finishing up before the ceiling-person crept in, and the lurker seems content with letting them go unmolested. They return up the concealed stairway and you wait for a bit, maybe two or three minutes, before they drop down to the ground.

With your low-light vision, it’s easy to see once they’re standing that the person has a tail. You’re in the middle of pondering that—Brockton doesn’t have a huge number of nonhuman-looking capes that you know of—when they pull out a phone and tap away at it. A moment later they curse softly and slide a messenger bag around to their front and root around before pulling something out and attaching it to the phone and clipping the other part to the bag strap. Another moment and a satisfied-sounding grunt later they poke at the phone again and slide something into their ear. They start talking as they move around and start their own perusal of the place.

“Hey boss-lady. I’m in. There were two people in here who looked to be taking documents. I know you said ‘no contact’, but they were grabbing documents. Might wanna stop ‘em.” There’s a pause as he listens and you see him shake his head. “Alright, your call.”

Pulling a tube from his pack, a click of a button reveals it to be a red-colored flashlight. As he swings it around and gets oriented you continue listening in to his side of the conversation. “Yeah, the steam tunnels had an opening. Dunno if I’d’ve been able to get it open otherwise, but it was left just barely cracked.”

He—the voice is masculine—starts moving towards the front of the building where the collapse happened, absently turning over equipment and poking around. “I don’t see anyth—huh, cages.” He shakes his head even though the person on the other side doesn’t see it, “Nah, like animal-size, not person-size. I don’t think this is what we’re looking for. Gonna check up the stairs real quick then I’ll be done.” He heads towards the hidden stairwell while you slip back up the hole you’d dug before. 

The cape takes their time, sliding the concealed door open just a crack and waiting before slowly emerging. Once he’s fully out there’s a couple of moments of confusion as his head is on a swivel back and forth. From your vantage point you see him tap his earpiece. “So…. I’m still in a basement level. There are like, _two_.”

Once again he sifts through the debris and it’s a short time before he pulls something up and examines it closer in the dim glow of his flashlight. “Boss, this is it. These are _manna_ containers.” He moves towards the collapsed area and sifts through debris, picking up several other metal containers that you had dismissed as unimportant. “Fuck, there’s a lot of them. Some of these look like the containment failed, but there’s a _lot_ of shrapnel here. Give me a minute.”

While the tailed figure looks to be reassembling one of the containers, you move and find a similar one near the desk you’re behind. It looks like one of those cylinders they use at banks in the pneumatic tubes, except made completely of metal. One end has a power display on it along with two buttons, and there’s a swing-open door along the long side that’s open, showing the container to be empty. Other than that there’s almost nothing else. The only labels are over the buttons—one says ‘On/Off’, and the other ‘Open’. Between the two is a fancy-looking letter ‘C’.

“Yeah, it’s _them_ ,” the guy spits venomously a couple of minutes later. “Don’t fuckin’ believe…” he throws one of the larger chunks angrily and starts digging through more debris and rushing from room to room, his breathing harsh and angry. Five minutes or so of furious searching tapers off as he slumps into a chair that’s remained upright. “There’s no fucking computers here. All the other shit we’ve seen before is around—fuck, I’ve seen that same kind of mass spectrometer before. I shouldn’t know what a goddamn mass spectrometer _is_!” 

He goes silent after that, but whips the earbud out and stares at the thing before hammering buttons on his phone and tentatively putting it back in. “Are you done yelling? Damn, almost blew out my ear.” He stands and pockets a couple of pieces of the containers. “Yeah, I’m on my way out now.”

The tailed guy heads back down the stairs and you trail him into the ‘steam tunnels’. Other than a quick peek out the door to check for anyone waiting there he doesn’t seem to consider he’s being followed.

An occasional light shines in the tunnels and you can see that the monster cape has red skin as he passes under one. You’re fairly sure you’re headed east, but with both shorter legs and four of them you have no idea how far it is before he stops in a circular concrete room with a higher ceiling. A shoddy metal ladder leads up to an open manhole, which he climbs in the blink of an eye. The cover settles back on it shortly after.

Pulling back and shifting back to human, you check your phone and find that almost two hours have passed. A quick shift back to something canine and you hurry back to the original door and try to track the scent trails you’d detected earlier. 

Quite a bit of backtracking later and while you have by no means tracked _every_ trail down, the vast majority seem to have funneled through and continue out of the tunnels at two points: one is an access door in the side of a hill. These tunnels—steam, sewer, or whatever else they are—appear to run underneath the entire campus, with this entrance emerging from the west side and sheltered from direct view by some tree cover. While the door appears to lock from the outside, the inside has a crash bar to release, and while it’s been wiped clean, there are traces of blood around it. 

The second egress is to the northeast and appears to be a vent of some kind. The pipe is, or _was_ blocked by bars, but only rusted bits remain, once again with blood coating them. Looking out from the tunnel yourself, there’s a bit of a drop to the concrete viaduct below. The body of a dog crumpled below shows that whatever else managed to escape (and there are _lots_ of different scents), one didn’t make it any farther.

You’re ready to head back to your apartment anyhow, so you shift into a bird and fly down to inspect the corpse, shifting once again to your own canine form. Your initial impression of it being a dog is… right, but not completely. It is… _was_ a pitbull, but it looks like one that had alterations done to it. The ears are tiny and the tail looks non-existent. Not docked like some dogs, almost like it never had a tail at all. The dog’s nails look almost shiny—not like actually metal, but glossy and pointier than you expect from a dog—and the whole animal is ridiculously muscled, enough that your first thought is that they fed the thing nothing but steroids. Except for the head, which on closer inspection appears to be misshapen and lumpy.

Additionally, a sniff tells you that this animal, or ones like it, were the source of the _wrongness_ you’d been smelling. Putting exact words to it is hard, and the sick-sweet smell of decay doesn’t help any, but the corpse smells like it was sick when it died, a whiff of what seems like pus and bile.

Changing back you take pictures in case it helps you find other escapees, finding the smell in human form almost vomit-inducing. Quickly finishing, you fly back to your apartment and check in with Huginn, who you left watching the homeless encampment. His report of ‘lot small fires’ seems like a fight had broken out until some clarifying questions reveal that they just have a number of campfires that they’re sitting around. 

You fly higher than you have previously on your way back to your apartment and a twisting beam of light lances from the sky to the ground far to the south, down near ABB territory. A second and third follow shortly after, then the glowing figure that had launched them zips off trailing light. Another spiral of light hits a different area, by your estimation heading towards Southside Beach.


	4. A White Woman in Chinatown / (Almost) Cuts Like a Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: Racist name-calling from a white supremacist.

You damn yourself for your curiosity and fly closer, feeling the shape of your wings adjusting as you try to catch up. The glowing figure, which had been heading eastish, swerves south, west, and back north in quick succession, throwing those twisting lances of light all the while.

Once you approach the same general area you can see the figure’s flight is a bit more erratic than it had looked, little jukes from side to side blending together into a smear of light. Sharp _pop_ s of gunfire explain why moments later. 

You land on an elevated billboard and watch from a block or so away as Purity—you didn’t follow cape news much, but you know who the glowing Nazi is—shoots a beam and hits a truck just rounding a corner. The front pretty much disappears and a hole gets punched into the street even as the bodies in the back are catapulted into the air, people and guns flying in all directions. You feel a dull throb in your chest as you watch the bed of the truck flops into the crater.

The shining cape zips to the roof next to yours and lands in between two large AC units while her light dims somewhat. She’s still almost painful to look at, but by squinting you can see her doing something to her left arm, which has a dark splotch that stands out against her otherwise white body. Even over the groans and cries from the street below you can hear her shout in pain as she bandages what you assume is a gunshot wound. 

_< humans take fire, wave around, shouting, shouting>_ Huginn reports from the homeless camp. He’s almost all the way across the city but you still twitch your head in that direction as if you’d be able to see through the intervening buildings. You can’t, obviously, but you do catch the Rig’s rainbow shield blinking out for a few seconds before popping back on. 

_> are they fighting?<_ you ask.

_< leader wave fire-stick. others shove.>_

Lifting off the roof just enough to look over the edge, the Empire’s heavy-hitter nods and starts to move towards you slowly, wobbling a little on her way back towards Empire territory. Looking past her you can see the destroyed street and bodies—both moving and not—as well as smoke from what looks like at least three fires in the distance; the ones you can see being a brownstone of some kind and the other a warehouse. 

A glance behind you doesn’t show any other visible Empire capes. You know there’s one that can float things in the air that others ride on as well as the two giant amazons and the pure white (not glowing) guy, and none of those are anywhere to be seen despite how obvious they’d likely be. You have no clue if this is some kind of retaliation or an attempt at provocation. You don’t really pay a huge amount of attention to cape news other than the basics, but you swear that you saw a headline just last week on brocktonline.com that there hadn’t been a fatal shooting or stabbing in like _two weeks_! Things had been quiet!

Purity picks up a bit of speed as she moves past, but you can hear her pained breaths as she mutters to herself. “Stupid teleporting chink....” 

Being neither white nor Asian, you have absolutely no dog in the fight between gangs. You _could_ go home and worry about absolutely none of this. Or you could check back in on that camp and see if they’ve set fire to the bush you somehow spawned.

You launch yourself down between buildings and shift as you approach the ground. Touching your face you feel the wood of your mask for reassurance and set your shoulders as you move into view.

There are four—no six—bodies on the ground, two unmoving. The other four are in various degrees of confusion, one staring at the pit right next to them, a couple writhing on the ground in pain. You get within ten meters or so before one of the groaning bodies notices you and tries to lift his gun, accomplishing little with the grotesquely-mangled hand at the end of his arm. “Empire!”

“No, I’m not eighty-eight,” you say as the remainder stir. “I’m not white enough.” You’ve tried to deepen your voice and change the way you talk; you’re not trying to talk _slow_ , instead going for ‘unhurried and in control’, even if you feel anything but. Stepping a bit closer you kneel and place a hand one of the unmoving bodies and know immediately that they’re dead—in a contrast to the way you could sense life at a distance when you meditated the other day, it takes just a touch to know that the shell holds no life. Your chest feels tight even as you move to the other body. This one has a tiny bit of life left, draining bit by bit onto the pavement, breaths quick and shallow. 

A word and a tap on an exposed palm—the only thing not covered in blood—and the glow sinks in and spreads it’s vines under the skin. Even as you stand again the person takes a shuddery breath and moves slightly. You turn to the guy who’d noticed you first and realize he’s managed to swap his pistol over to his left hand but it’s pointing at the ground. He twitches it up and jerks his head towards the body at your feet, wincing as he does. “What did you _do_?”

“It heals people just a bit. I’m no Panacea—” or at least the New Wave girl is _supposedly_ some kind of super-healer, “—but it’s the only thing I could do.”

“Where’d you come from?” asks one of the other guys muzzily. It takes a moment for you to understand through both the accent and his thick-with-pain voice.

“I was up on a roof on the north side and saw Purity doing the light beam thing. I got here as she took off.” You swallow and point to the first body, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do for them. Do you want help too?”

The gun holding guy goes to wave you off but his buddy next to him manages to push himself up exposing a cheek completely torn away by the road. You can see his cracked teeth as he moans. “Pluheashe…” he manages before slumping prone again. 

Moving over and touching the guy you roll him onto his side and watch as new teeth grow in and the skin begins to knit back together. The tension in his body relaxes a bit and he manages to say something to the first guy in a language you don’t understand, but you’ve heard at Winslow a fair amount. Mandarin Chinese, maybe?

The gun-guy completely releases the pistol and barely catches himself with his good arm. “Fuck it, yeah, all of us,” he sighs tiredly.

One quick round to touch each of them later you re-cast the spell on the most wounded and go to leave when three different voices shout, words overlapping. You understand ‘stop!’ perfectly fine, though, and a spike of something down your spine already had you moving and twisting, shoving off with a shifted leg to gain distance. You finish your spin with hands up and ready to cast or claw.

There are three Oni Lees, one with an Uzi and a naked steel blade that glints in the streetlight, the others, ashy clones flanking him on either side, perhaps a meter from your back. The cape with the red mask turns slightly and listens as the guy whose cheek was healed—the new skin still red and shiny in the light—speaks rapidly in a language you can’t understand. The gray clones remain unnaturally still, focused on the space you had been standing in moments before. 

You… you’re not sure that flash of instinct would have kept the knife from hitting you. You straighten from the half-crouch you landed in and let your power suffuse into the ground, three summons forming silently in the crater to your right ready to leap in. Two more spirits bind with the metal of the truck bed, nascent forms ready to charge in from behind. 

It takes almost a minute of frantic, one-sided conversation before the two clones collapse into piles of ash and the red-masked demon of the ABB turns to look at you again. There isn’t much of a breeze here but you get a hint of ash and something almost sickly-sweet—like hot antifreeze from an overheating car—as the two of you stare at each other. An uncomfortable amount of silence stretches and the adrenaline that had been dumped into your veins burns out leaving you twitchy before a weedy voice issues out from the demon mask.

“You… are not…” he begins, before lapsing back into what you think is Chinese of some type, “be… gone.” He looks to the side and bursts into ash repeatedly, four clones in his wake once more oriented on you. The statue-stillness is echoed by the cape himself even as you incline your head and back away. Behind him two of the gang members gesture in what you think might be apology. 

Once you’ve created enough space you angle towards an alley and shift as soon as you’re out of sight, night-black plumage hiding you as you gain altitude before perching on a windowsill. Moments later Oni Lee appears silently with the gun up and ready, his head pivoting mechanically left and right for a few moments before the cape is replaced by an ash clone that repeats what the real person had done for another minute or so before collapsing into ash. You wait for another few moments before flying up and away from this fucking mess.

There’s no way that going back to your apartment and trying to sleep would work, so you head towards Huginn and the homeless camp for lack of any other outlet. Your familiar mentions that the ‘fire-sticks’ are still being waved, but keeps saying there’s no fighting. When you finally make it and land next to him, you have to admit Huginn was right, there isn’t a fight, it’s some kind of weird argument.

A number of people—including, you think, the guy you saved—are standing near the bush. There’s a haphazardly-made platform off to the side but no one’s on it now, but several people are holding torches and gesturing wildly, each with a group surrounding them like high school cliques. While your enhanced hearing can generally make out what they’re saying (when they’re not shouting over each other), due to the sheer number of conversations going on it’s only vaguely comprehensible. 

There’s a bunch about ‘taking the fight’ to the Merchants—no, to be fair the sentiment is more like ‘we’re gonna fuck them Merchant bitches up!’, as well as something about fruit (or maybe berries?), and claims about ‘taking territory’. A separate set of conversations are going on about like, gardening or something, and some others seem to be talking about searching the news for information about… something.

It becomes clear that you’ve shown up _after_ some kind of meeting or council or whatever and are watching the aftermath, as the torches are starting to burn out and the crowd is disbursing back to their tents. You give up your surveillance once the majority have left and head back to your apartment.

It’s not until you’ve shifted back to human and taken your mask off that your knees turn to jelly and you collapse into a chair. You’d tried to _help_ people; yes, they were ABB gang members, but fuck, leaving them to bleed out was just cruelty on Purity’s part. 

None of that mattered to Oni Lee, though. You don’t even know if he cared what you were doing; you were not ABB, he was going to kill you. To try and pull your thoughts from spiraling around your brush with death you try to focus on something more useful—you need an idea of how to handle yourself in combat. And you need to consider yourself in combat if you were out and masked up, no matter what you were doing. A bit of considering and it smacks you in the head—you have summons, you'll keep them around to watch your back unless there's some serious requirements for stealth.

You collapse into bed after your planning session and wake up the next morning once again well-rested. This time you think you drifted towards the clearing on the hill but didn’t quite make it. It’s more of a feeling than remembering a dream, though.

Once again you show up to campus early, but this time you do it as a bird, then shift to a squirrel while you sniff around the Anders building. Like you’d found the previous day, that sour smell wafts up from the hole. Your attempts at checking out other scent trails falls flat in the face of so many different people having walked around though. Hints of the fear/anger/sick aromas _are_ around, but they’re so muddled you can’t tell anything beyond the fact that something or things carrying that scent were here at some point.

Giving that up as a bad job you head towards your chem class. You have to pause as Laserdream comes in for a landing in the quad and everyone stops to gawk. She’s dressed like any other co-ed and the incongruity of a woman wearing the same Ugg boots and baggy sweater/leggings combo dropping out of the sky makes you shake your head. She’s in the same lecture hall as you and is constantly chatting with a herd of girls that swirls around her. You’ve seen Glory Girl fly in and demand everyone’s attention similarly although you don’t share any classes.

After finding your preferred seat (kinda towards the back, all the way to the side) and rummaging through your bag for a pen and notebook you take a minute to lean your head back and crack your neck. Shifting doesn’t _actually_ hurt you or feel weird when you’re doing it, but for whatever reason the squirrel-suit you were wearing felt strange where the bird and dog forms hadn’t. 

You pull out your phone and check the news, searching first for information about the ABB or Oni Lee. There’s a couple of stories about general ‘increased gang violence’, but nothing talking about Purity’s attack or even anything that sounds like capes were involved in the first place.

Only one other story really catches your eye, but it’s about being on the lookout for ‘feral animal’ attacks up around the Captain’s Hill area, which is north-westish of campus. A boy was attacked and mauled, with the current supposition being that it was a bobcat or similar. Closing your eyes and rubbing your face as you think, it’s completely possible that the lab animals could have gone that way. There’s certainly more places to hide up among the larger McMansions that were separated by wooded areas.

While you’re sitting there with your eyes closed you focus on the conversations around you. Enhanced hearing—at least in your case—doesn’t go hand-in-hand with an increased ability to filter through all of the extra sounds you process, so while you can probably hear everyone in the room, even the people whispering in the front, you can’t always pick out individual conversations. The one going on right behind you, though, is easy enough. 

“Omigod, her hair is just so _beautiful_. Wonder if it’s as soft as it looks.”

“It _is_ very pretty, Jordan, but I think it would be very rude to touch.”

You shake your head a bit, sounds like someone’s got a girl crush. You ignore the soft continuation as you try to focus on the knot of people around Laserdream, which is why you jump, startled, when a hand cards through your hair a moment later.

Whipping around you find the two girls behind you—who you thought were talking about someone else—staring back at you in surprise. The one on the right—a bleach-blonde white girl—has frozen with her hand still outstretched, her mouth open in an exaggerated ‘O’, while her friend, who has her hair wrapped in a headscarf of some kind, has her hands pressed against her dusky cheeks and is almost cringing away.

The first girl shakes herself out of her stupor first, snatching her hand back before shooting you some hastily-formed devil horns. “Uh, Metallica rocks, dude!” She wilts even more when you look over at the other girl and gesture vaguely, like the blonde was a dog who got off-leash. Still looking away the middle-eastern girl speaks in a soft voice as she cuts her eyes over to her seat mate. “Sorry! I tried to hell her touching would be rude. She just thought your hair looked very nice!” 

You blink at the smaller girl, then again over at the blonde, both of whom look mortified at this point. You were never _great_ at defusing tension, but… “Thanks, I grew it myself.” That gets a lessening of tension in hair-scarf’s shoulders and a little giggle out of the white girl. “And Metallica, really? I’m not a metalhead, but _really_? You couldn’t have at least said Slayer or something?”

That gets a huff and the green-eyed girl crosses her arms. “I don’t know any metal bands, but my dad listens to Metallica.” She smiles brightly a moment later and leaning forward to reach you, extends a hand. “Jordyn, with a ‘y’.”

“Chepi,” you offer, and turn to the quieter girl. She introduces herself as Sabah, only leaning in to shake your hand at Jordyn’s prompting. You catch a whiff of sweet from the darker-skinned girl, a hint of warm maple syrup perhaps.

The three of you chat in the short time before the lecture starts; really Jordyn talks and you and Sabah mostly nod or offer an affirmative noise now and again. The blonde seems very intelligent—she summarizes everything the instructor is going to go over for your lab later in the week better than the TA seems capable of—but also has the attention span of a gnat if one or the other of you aren’t actively engaging her about something. You’re somehow not surprised that it turns out about five minutes into the lecture starting that Jordyn starts braiding your hair instead of taking notes. Sabah mouths a ‘thank you’, you guess for keeping her attention from wandering and bothering her seat mate.

It’s your light day, so after your class you take a bus over towards Winslow and end up finding Diego right as the guy blows off his last class period. The two of you don’t even bother to sneak as you head up to the roof on the western side of the building to chat; you’re pretty sure the only cameras that work are watching the teacher parking lot so their cars don’t get broken into. At that point he catches you up on even more of the shit that’s happened in the week since the high school started.

Diego would probably be the king of gossip in Winslow if he could keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes. In spite of his love of showing off any insider knowledge he has in order to be smug—and people knowing that he can’t keep a secret to save his own fucking life—the impeccably-dressed Latino still manages to know pretty much everything about anything going on in the school. Over the course of thirty minutes or so he fills you in on how a couple of recent... ‘graduates’ had come back.

“So Kyle was supposed to start working with his old man over at his auto shop, but suddenly he’s selling weed and acid and talking about how he ‘owns this fucking block’, and a couple of the stoner guys have started following him around when he deals. Then the other day, Jun-Yeong showed up in ABB colors, but doesn’t really look happy about it...”

There’s more—stuff about how the wresting team is all-white this year and ‘just happened’ to all shave their heads and that kind of stuff. Diego’s still going on a mile a minute as you pull the hair tie that Jordyn had left in and start shaking the braid out, the girl'd made it way too tight. You twist your head to the side and see, through the windows, someone creeping up on a locker. Now, people having their stuff broken into isn’t unusual, but the way it happens _is_.

Focusing in, you watch as this black girl reaches _through_ the shut door and picks something up out of the locker before turning and holding it out. Two other girls walk up—one a redhead, and the other looks like Madison. 

Diego notices your distraction and leans over the edge himself and figures out what you’re looking at. “Yeah man, you know how I told you Madison was part of some bitch crew who tried to step to Rachael?” He nods his head at the trio, who are ripping paper and dropping it on the floor. “That’s them. Redhead’s Emma someshit, the other’s supposedly a track star, Susan, Sarah, some white-ass name for a black girl.”

The bell rings shortly after and Diego heads out to catch a ride from a cousin of his. You see the three girls exit the doors; Madison and the redhead get in to a fairly-fancy car while the apparent cape slinks off to a car over by the far side of the lot that just _screams_ ‘undercover cop’.


	5. Fight Night / A View to an (Almost) Murder

You’re able to keep up with the car only due to stoplights and the fact that you can fly over buildings; without being able to cheat like that you’d never catch up. Following the vehicle northeast you’re able to fly ahead and perch in a tree as it comes to a stop in front of a small duplex in what most people consider Merchant territory—not that the druggies seem to be interested in _holding_ territory. 

The door gets thrown open and the girl gets out and starts trudging to the door. An older woman in a PRT uniform leans over to close the passenger door, yelling at the girl, “Sophia! Remember you have patrol tomorrow night!”

“I _heard_! Damn!” the black girl replies, waving a dismissive hand. She fumbles with a key and looks back at the waiting car before disappearing inside. The car doesn’t drive off immediately, you note, even as you fly over to the building. 

Enhanced hearing or not, you can’t hear through walls. Shifting into something more squirrel-like you clamber down the side and put yourself next to a window. You still can’t hear words, but the somewhat-raised voices of an argument are easy enough to detect. The car drives off and the voices get louder, ending suddenly as a baby cries and loud stomps pass by your head on the way up stairs.

You’re a bit weirded out by eavesdropping on what appears to be domestic troubles so you make your way back to the roof and decide to head over to check on the collapsed warehouse where you did the ritual. Before you take flight, however, a human-shaped black cloud slides through the window and floats down to the ground, reforming into the girl complete with a different backpack. She starts texting and walking, paying no attention to where she’s going but not running into anything. 

Trailing her over two blocks, she scales a dumpster and leaps towards a fire escape, shifting to and from shadow to make the distance. Up on the rooftop she uncovers a cache of _something_ —you can’t see what it is without getting closer—and finally calls someone so you can get an idea of what’s going on. 

“Don’t you show up with a fucking _salad_. Meet me at the bus stop by Quincy and Larchmont.” As she falls quiet she tugs on something and pulls out a stubby little baseball bat and stuffs it into her bag. “Yes, there. We’re dealing with that flinch you got when ABB walk by.” There’s a short pause before the girl speaks with some heat in her voice, “Don’t be a weak-ass bitch like Hebert. If you don’t stand up for yourself then you can lose my number, Emma.” A moment later and there’s a flash of a cruel smile on her face. “That’s what I thought. Be there.”

The cape finishes up and floats down to the ground before catching a bus heading southwest. You shift and ride along on the roof until it’s over on the west side of the city, near the edge of Empire and ABB territory. While you’re car surfing you check in with Huginn and verify there’s no riots up in the homeless area—they’re apparently singing around campfires if you translate your familiar’s phrasing right—so you have him take flight and meet you shortly after this Sophia girl leaves the bus, down around the Bakersfield area.

This section of the city isn’t really fought over, being mostly residential and older families, but just a couple of blocks east there’s a park with basketball courts that have been the center of a number of non-powered gang fights.

More texting you can’t see later, the redhead from earlier—Emma, apparently—shows up with a couple paper bags of food and Sophia leads her to yet another abandoned building. This time they make their way to a second story and eat, the two gossiping about fellow students and laughing at things they’ve done to torment this Hebert girl.

Soon enough they’re finished and toss their bags off to the side. Sophia strips off her jeans and hoodie to reveal a bodysuit beneath and pulls a mask and cloak out. If the shadow-state thing hadn’t clued you in already, the dark metal mask of Shadow Stalker made things more obvious. She’s supposedly the newest Ward, but her schoolmate in her yoga pants and an old hockey mask that Stalker passes her doesn’t appear to be a cape at all. 

You take the time to fly up to the roof and summon the Horde. Perhaps in response to your desires the animals are split between two birds—one formed from a wire fan cover that twists and deforms around a flickering green flame, the other made from cardboard and similarly limned in the color of new leaves—and three cats formed of gravel and brick. Huginn flies in and gives a soft, guttural _kraa_ and shakes his wings at you. _< I guard you this time>_

Blinking at the comment, you shift and fly back down to verify the girls haven’t left yet. _> You’re not the boss of me, you know.<_

There’s a sense of… exasperation, you’d guess, from the bird. _< You die, I die. I not want to die.>_

That was fair enough. You let your familiar handle the summons, vaguely sensing the birds taking up sentry positions watching your back as the cats make their way to the other sides of the building. 

The teenagers confer and Emma stows the mask as she walks southeast. Stalker climbs up to the roof and glides along until they’re a block or so south of the courts, where the two girls join back up. Maybe ten minutes of scouting on the cape’s part finds the two of them shadowing a weedy-looking Asian guy in gang colors who’s only paying attention to his phone, Stalker back up among the rooftops and pointing a crossbow with live heads at him. Emma is hiding pressed up against a rolling garage door with the bat in her trembling hands.

Huginn is providing overwatch on Sophia and directing four of the five summons as you creep closer. The other—one of the cats—is directly by your side like a diminutive bodyguard. You’d shifted into something more simian, the dark fur helping you to blend in and the smaller size allowing you to perch in a window frame on the same building that Shadow Stalker is on to reduce the chance of her spotting you. The light isn’t the greatest, but as you start the recording on your phone you see there’s enough to make out both the dude walking and paying too much attention to his phone and the teenage girl clutching a bat hard enough that each tremble of her hands is transmitted up its length. 

In the moments before the attack happens your mind provides an unhelpful addition—the short bat Emma has is a fucking T-ball bat like kindergarteners use. It seems almost comical, right up to the point where the twists from her hiding spot and buries the bat into the guy’s ribs, using the rebound to help line up the second strike to his back right as the figure curls up and exposes it. He covers his head with a cry but doesn’t go down until the redhead snaps a kick into his shin and topples him over. Sophia’s cruel laugh from above you drowns out the sound of his body hitting the floor. Your mouth goes dry and the pit of your stomach is hard; you twitch and hold yourself back from leaping out to help the guy.

The beating starts out almost methodical as the girl brings the bat down on the man’s chest and legs with meaty _thunk_ s, kicking him or swinging at his head if his arms do anything other than protect his face. It speaks to a worrying level of experience, honestly. 

Emma reduces the presumable gang member to a curled, whimpering wreck with perhaps a minute’s work and then steps back as Shadow Stalker’s cloudy form falls from the roof to join her. As she turns back to flesh, her crossbow is pointed right at the guy’s head, the bladed edges glinting even in the dim light. “Don’t fuckin’ move,” the Ward growls, before poking the redhead next to her with an elbow. “Is that it, Ems? The Azn Bitch Boys almost killed you and your old man and you just hit him a couple of times? What are you, a pussy? Thought you were harder, _survivor_.”

A noise somewhere between a growl and a sob breaks out of the shorter girl and any precision she may have had is lost as she brings the bat down again and again. Metallic _ping_ s sound when she swings wildly and misses the body completely and the bat rebounds against the asphalt. Half-formed words spill from her mouth in between screamed, wordless anger.

With growing horror you stuff your phone into the summon’s mouth and command it to stay in that position as you skitter along the wall and around the corner before dropping to the ground and peeking back. Things have quickly taken a turn for the crazy—well, crazier than they already were—and you want to be able to break things up if they continue on this murderous trajectory.

Sophia puts a halt to the beating after a bit, grabbing the bat on a backswing and holding it steady. Slamming some vicious kicks into the guy’s ribs she manages to get him on his back, where he lays, seemingly semi-conscious. Her left hand lets go of the bat and disappears under her cloak before pulling out a knife and holding it out to the other girl. “They were gonna cut you, right? Slash your face, ruin your modeling career, all that shit.” She waggles the blade, “Turn it around on ‘em. Cut off a finger. Show him who’s on top.”

The clatter of the bat falling to the ground echoes in the otherwise silent alley as the redhead takes the knife. As she starts to kneel and draw her hand back you make sure your hood is up and round the corner. You’re primed and ready to shift into a faster form if you need to close the distance quicker even as you fake a startled sound, “Ay, what the fuck?”

Emma shrieks and turns, unbalanced. She falls onto the wounded ganger and flails around. Shadow Stalker’s right arm starts to come up—presumably to threaten or shoot you with the crossbow—before she snaps it back down and snags her friend’s hand. Emma ends up dropping the knife as well as they stumble into the shadows and disappear. A quick thought to Huginn has the familiar and the two bird summons keep eyes on the retreating girls as the rest form up nearby to guard you. 

The cat you’d left with the camera brings it up to you and you stop the current recording and start a second as you hurry up to the guy on the ground. Wounded people are something you’ve become all-too-familiar with in the past couple of days. This time the person doesn’t have any visible bleeding but even without their head being targeted for most of the attack they’re not really coherent at first. Doing your best to record with one hand you tap them and cast _Verdant Bloom_ and give the spell a couple of seconds to work before asking questions. It takes repeating yourself a couple of times before you get responses, but either the healing helps enough or shock sets in and takes his mind off of the pain and pretty soon the guy’s giving a decent recount of everything that happened from his perspective. You get him to sit up and let him continue to talk while two of the summons grab the bat and knife and drag them off. 

The vine tracery that denotes your spell disappears before the guy—Pichai—seems to notice. He’s still out of it, the insanity of being randomly attacked obviously throwing him off. You point out his phone and despite the cracked screen it still works. Getting him to call someone to pick him up you slink back around the corner and find a discarded plastic bag to wrap your hands in so you don’t put your fingerprints on the weapons that were used. Luckily holding them doesn’t appear to hamper your shifting as you take flight and check in with your familiar. 

_< girls return to nest, change, yell lots>_

_> Are they still there?<_

_< no. they take _bus _. go north >_ the bird-spirit informs you, slowing down on the unfamiliar word.

You’re unsurprised they fled as fast as possible, although you had considered trying to ambush _them_ if they were still in the building they’d used. Instead you take off once again and consider what you’re going to do with proof that Shadow Stalker, a recent Ward, is doing some kind of weird revenge-vigilante murder stuff. It’s completely possible that turning it over to the PRT would get the girl nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but just as likely that something more serious would happen but there’d be enough layers of PR bullshit that you’d never notice the difference. Or maybe nothing would change at all. Of course, posting it online or sending it in to one of the local news shows may or may not turn out the same way. 

A little voice in your head whispers that there’s always the option to blackmail one or both of the girls, but considering the cape’s crazy enough to suggest stabbing random people it seems like you’d have a fight on your hands if you tried, and you don’t know what would work on her if she did her shadow trick.

During your musings you’d headed west-ish and find yourself in the old industrial area where you’d done the Incarnate ritual to make Huginn. Even in the darkness it’s easy to find the exact collapsed warehouse...

...mainly because of all the floodlights and biohazard-suited figures.

Shifting to something more owl-like and silent you get closer and take a look at what’s going on. The vehicles are parked farther back, but in the cast-off light it’s still possible to see the purple stripes and shield on them. You don’t think trying to creep up on the spacesuit-looking people would help much, but a bit further back out of the light someone’s peeled themselves out of the suit and looks to be typing things into a laptop with a fully suited PRT trooper next to them. Landing on the roof of one of the vans, you listen in.

“—ow long this is gonna be?” the trooper asks, their voice muffled.

The… scientist? technician? sighs and pulls her hair back into a rough bun. “Don’t expect us to be done tonight. Armsmaster got a recording of this site off of his bike cameras and immediately jumped to assuming it was some kind of biotinker lair, so it’s getting a whole workup. He might even show up himself, for all the good it’d do.”

“Pretty shitty lair if it was. Maybe a test site?”

“Why does everyone assume it’s Tinker work? There’s at least three capes I can think of that could do things like this— _besides_ Blasto—and none of them are Tinkers. This looks like a Shaker to me.” There’s a strange emphasis on the word ‘Shaker’, similar to the way they say ‘Tinker’. You assume it’s some kind of PRT labelling system. The woman continues, “I’m assuming it’s a side effect of some other power, at first glance everything appears to have pulled non-natural items from the soil. Some of the stems leaked oil when they were cut, and that half-metal vine was full of what I’m pretty sure is cutting fluid.”

“The hell is cutting fluid?”

“Stuff that helps lubricate when machining gets done—dad’s a machinist. Anyway, even if there’s ways to re-use it, like gallons of the stuff end up getting spilled so it’d be all in the drains and soil and such. No Tinker is going to create plants that leech that stuff out of the ground. Not nearly enough possibilities for explosions in it.” There’s a laugh of agreement from the trooper.

You take off and head back to your apartment. Huginn reports in from the homeless encampment that there’s a second group setting up in one of the other lots right across the street, but it sounds like no fights or anything of the kind have broken out, so you call him back and he’s soon settled in to the nest he’s made in your living room.

Watching the video of a teenage girl brutalizing some guy is… it’s disgusting, but easier to deal with than watching it live. Emma’s handling of the guy shows _practice_. It’s obvious she knew to go for the shin when the first two hits didn’t work, she kept an eye out on what his hands were doing. Despite what should be a laughable weapon she was in control the entire time, at least until Stalker egged her into going berserker. 

You’re no video editing expert, but chopping the end of the video where you run in and startle the two psychos works well enough. The second video with Pichai’s description of the attack from his perspective you make two copies of—one complete and one with just the audio track so that the spell working on him can’t be seen blooming under his skin. 

Once you’ve gotten the videos edited you copy them to your computer as well as an extra USB drive you have sitting around. You’re not really sure what to _do_ with this. Do you send it in to the PRT? Anonymously or as a cape—a cape without a name at the moment. It’s completely possible they’d sweep it under the rug, and just as possible that something would come of it but you’d never know due to their PR department spinning it. 

Then again, dumping it onto the internet at large would probably start a shitstorm. There was some cape that got stuff posted about them last year, you don’t remember the name offhand, and retaliation from gangs was the mildest thing that occurred. They’d been taken in by PRT after an assassination attempt left them partially paralyzed; you don’t know what’s happened to them now.

As a middle-ish ground, you suppose you could send it in to one of the TV stations. None of the Bay-area stations were exactly bastions of journalistic inquiry, but they’ve never shied away from reporting on things critical of the PRT, so it seems unlikely they’ll just bury the story.

Of course, you could also try to blackmail one or both of the girls. Well, blackmail Stalker or both of them, because it was Stalker—Sophia—who seemed to be egging Emma further into possible murder, so trying to control the redhead alone wouldn’t accomplish much. Stalker seems like the kind of person who’d immediately jump to either kicking your ass or killing you if you tried, so a plan on how to kick _her_ ass would probably be a good idea first.

Huginn flies down to the table and waddles over and snatches the drive from you, butting his head against your shoulder before flapping back to his nest. When you broadcast bewilderment the spirit-infused bird tilts his head and looks at you with unnaturally blue eyes. _< this important thing. I guard, like i guard you.>_

Standing and ruffling his head-feathers you roll into your bed and contemplate your choices. Hopefully the scare would keep the girls from going out immediately—maybe even for weeks—so you don’t need to decide right this second, just soon. Besides, Stalker is apparently doing some kind of Wards patrol tomorrow. She _probably_ isn’t about to just go crazy where she can be seen. You’ll take the time to think about it, but now you’re going to close your eyes…

…and open your inner ones. You’re back on the bedroll, but this time as you sit up you have company. One of the spirits of the Horde is perched on a stump next to you, a ghostly overlay of Huginn’s raven body shimmering around it. 

Looking above you the stars shimmer as they did the previous time and the two bodies are further intertwined. The arcs of shining things that trailed from them are now huge sprays of glittering liquid that blot out almost a third of the sky.

The fire you started is still burning brightly, the logs seeming whole despite the flames. The spring looks to be full—most likely the reason that you’re back here, you assume—and most of the treeline that had begun to leaf again looks whole. 

Except for one section. 

You’ve seen plants with that rainbow-slick coloring, of course, you were just looking at them an hour or so ago. The tree in question is dropping its leaves and branches are laying on the ground as if cut by axes. It’s not subtle in the slightest, but unless you’re willing to fight the PRT for the area, there’s also not much you can do about it.

Turning your attention instead to the spring, filling the bowl and moving over to choose which part of yourself to nourish. 


	6. (Sub)liminal / Planting Seeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Racial slurs from the neo-Nazi wannabes.

You walk towards the Beast, inclining your head slightly. The lounging shapeshifter morphs once again into its humanoid form and moves to meet you. Presenting the bowl you watch as this predator incarnate cradles the silver between clawed hands and sips daintily, the toothy grin showing in between those sips begging you to object to how long it’s taking. 

You don’t. 

In fact you find yourself amused and do your best to project that amusement. Perhaps next time you’ll manage to manifest a blanket and a tea service for the Beast to sip at. Repeated twitching of an eye is the only tell that what you assume is the manifestation of your shapechanging abilities isn’t joining in your amusement and may very well know what you’re thinking. Still, once the bowl has been drained to the dregs you see a brown-gray haze spring up around those hands and claws and feel a phantom sensation in your own hands. The bowl itself dissipates into motes that fly off to reform next to the spring and the Beast’s body flows backwards even as its head and neck remains opposite yours. You match its gaze until slitted, golden-yellow eyes close in a very catlike smile. 

This time the transition from in your mindscape to awake is the blink of an eye, as instead of the Beast you now see your ceiling. It’s not a _forceful_ awakening—your heart isn’t pounding in your ears—but it does feel a bit like the Beast kicked you out for making fun of it.

As you get ready for the day you try considering the Emma and Sophia issue from the angles of your three... parts. The Tree, hoarder of secrets, would tell you to keep this information and use it to blackmail one or both of the girls. The Horde probably wouldn’t care one way or the other, and the Beast would likely say they’re dangerous and need to have something done about them. If they knew who you were or had actively tried to attack you then killing would be on the table; as neither of those things are the case, establishing dominance would also work.

Extrapolating that out a bit further, yeah, the crazy teenage girls need to be taken care of, but why is it _you_ who needs to do anything about this? SophiaStalker is a Ward and presumably turning her in to them would accomplish something. Emma’s a bit more gray-area’d, but if Stalker gets into trouble it’s always possible she’ll sell her fellow nutjob out to try and get out of it.

And really, if nothing comes of it you’ll try something else. After all, you’re not dumb enough to just turn over all of the evidence and not keep copies. Multiple copies, because Huginn watches over you as you copy the files to some of the extra drives you have sitting around before snatching the original one back. You’re also not dumb enough not to try and follow some basic rules for reporting something anonymously. 

Digging through the closet in the room that used to be your parents’, you find some of your dad’s clothes that haven’t been worn in years. An old hooded sweatshirt and pair of corduroys in colors you don’t like will work for most of the disguise, and the scrap of cloth from your first night out works as a bandanna-esque mask. Besides, the disguise might not even be needed.

The next part of your master plan has you winging over to the library branch on one of the far sides of town and doing a little powers-assisted breaking and entering. Although if you shift into a mouse small enough to just waltz through a hole is it really ‘breaking’ into anything? Probably. Law terms are like that. 

Your, uh, ‘shifting’ and entering takes you down to the computer labs, where you find that there are indeed cameras, but with the library itself not opening for another two hours no one’s inside. Slipping back out and looting a librarian’s desk gets you some sticky notes. With a bit of wall-crawling as a monkey to cover the lenses with the Post-Its you take your time popping one of the drives in, zipping things up, and sending a short explanation to the PRT’s tip line. 

Then you do it all again at a different library, but send this message to the _Protectorate’s_ tip line, and a third time to the Youth Guard. None of the post-its appeared to have slipped during your break-ins, but even if they did hopefully the sight of an orangutan doing the reporting will confuse the viewers.

All of that takes enough time that while you’re not _late_ for class, you’re not as early as you normally are, ‘cause you have to switch out clothes on a rooftop. For someone who had punctuality ingrained in them from an early age by their mother, it almost feels worse, and you also feel irritated for feeling that way. Shouldering past a knot of chatting students outside the door you find your preferred seat already taken. You’re about to head towards the front (and possibly put yourself in the line of fire for helping Allen re-enact some historical drama) when a wildly-waving Jordyn catches your eye, along with a chirped ‘Chip!’. She freezes for a moment when you turn to her but continues when you give her a little smile and start making your way over. 

The blonde gestures you to an open seat, then switches with Sabah to bracket the Arab girl between you. The two of you exchange looks, but Jordyn’s the first to speak. “What was up with the bitchface, dude?”

“I’ve got issues with being late to things,” you say, digging out a pen. 

Both girls look bemused, but once again Jordyn speaks first. “You’re still like five minutes early,” she leans in and lowers her voice a bit, “buuuuuut, I need you to get that scowl back on. Some guy’s been sniffing around Sabah, here and she isn’t interested. Problem is, he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer and he’s creepin’.”

A look at the tiny girl between you shows her flushed—in anger or embarrassment you’re not sure—and staring at the white-knuckled hands in her lap. “It was in calculus class. He asked… no, he _told_ me that we would be going out on a date,” the girl says softly, not looking up, “I told him I was not interested in dating at the present time, but he did not stop. When I finally said ‘no’, he called me a…” she trails off and presses her lips together so tightly they seem to disappear.

“He called her a bitch.” Jordyn interjects. “Class was over and we were gonna meet up to head back to the dorm, and that asshole was following after her.” The blonde puts her hand on her friend’s shoulder and looks over Sabah’s head at you, “He left when we got to a more crowded area of campus, but we saw him in the dining hall and he was staring again. Had a whole bunch of lookalike dickheads around him too.”

Further explanation is cut off as Jordyn hisses and stares at someone who’s just walked in. Sabah shrinks down even smaller and slides back to hide behind you and goes completely still. You turn to look and it’s blatantly obvious who they’re talking about. The guy’s dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and has one of those fashionably shaggy haircuts you’d seen in ads and on celebrities recently. With the red and black backpack he looked like pretty much every frat boy on campus. The issue was the intense stare he had leveled on Sabah. It raises your hackles; not that you think the guy poses a threat to _you_ in a fight, but the look he was giving was not one that some lovestruck dipshit would give—it was the scowl of someone who was denied their prize; a the look of a predator after a hunt with no kill at the end.

The guy turns away, almost stomping to an open seat. You catch the hint of a tattoo behind his ear that looks angular; it’s not enough to know what it is, but you’ve seen similar tattoos on some of the more racist white boys back in Winslow. At least he turns away once class starts, giving Sabah a chance to relax and pay attention to the TA.

As class ends you and Jordyn split Sabah’s stuff between you and hustle the smaller girl out of the building. The blonde has her friend’s hand and is leading her along while you trail a bit behind. You’d called Huginn over since your familiar was otherwise just lazing around and have him keep track of Sabah’s stalker. The guy doesn’t follow you, instead going into another building. Unfortunately Huginn can’t _read_ , so you don’t know if it’s a dorm or another class, but you know the general area.

You end up following the girls to the dining hall. It’s a bit early for lunch but Jordyn says she’d rather be in a place with lots of people around, which is fair enough. The three of you grab food and sit, you and Jordyn making light conversation until Sabah feels up to joining in. 

It turns out the girls are roommates and have hit it off pretty well. Sabah plans on majoring in Engineering and Jordyn in Biology, and the two seem to compliment each other fairly well, Jordyn’s gregariousness drawing the quieter girl out when she goes silent. You discuss your own university plans—you’re a history major and will be continuing on to law school. You’d seen what knowledge of the law has done multiple times for both good and ill and you want in on it. The dorm life stuff they comment about you just laugh at, telling them that you’re a commuter student. Sabah is the one who shakes her head when you mention that. “I cannot imagine trying to find a parking space; every one we walk past is always full.”

“That’s what buses are for,” you comment mildly. “I _do_ have a motorcycle, but there’s no way I’d try to park on campus anyhow.” You laugh a bit, “Someone would either run their car into it because they think bikes don’t deserve parking, or people would be constantly sitting on it and taking selfies.”

Jordyn’s eyes had widened a bit when you mentioned your bike. “So, you got a spare helmet, right?” The blonde nudges her roommate, “You wanna ride Chip’s machine too, huh?”

Sabah manages a rosy blush even as you sigh and remind the perky girl that your name is _Chepi_ for the twentieth time. 

The three of you finish up and you escort the ladies to their dorm. Huginn had remained in the tree he’d watched the guy from and you can sense him near a dorm slightly catty-corner to where you are. Both dorms are also close to one of the sheltered areas you’d scoped out to allow you to shapeshift.

Dropping the girls’ stuff in their room you exchange phone numbers with both of them—you don’t share most classes but there’s no reason not to have study buddies for the two you do. You also get introduced to half of the hall as you go to leave; it’s something about the hair. You’re asked about your hair-care regime no less than four times and your answer of ‘just whatever shampoo and conditioner’ makes you absolutely no friends. 

Slipping into both the sheltered spot and a different form you fly up above the rooftops right as your familiar tells you that the guy has left the building he was in along with a number of other guys. You turn to follow them for a bit—at least to make sure they weren’t doing additional stalking—and see two blondes on a rooftop nearby. Laserdream and Glory Girl are waving their hands and gesturing at each other, but you can’t make anything out from this distance. You’d _love_ to know what kind of things capes talk about when they’re chatting amongst themselves, but checking in on the creep is more important. You land and put on your squirrel suit and listen in to the four guys that remain after the rest peel off towards the class areas.

It’s… every third word out of their mouths is some kind of slur. Your opinion of the original guy—who you gather is named ‘Carl’—wasn’t stellar, but you wonder if they’re actually mentally retarded somehow. They’re so incredibly, _blatantly_ racist they can hardly seem to finish sentences before launching off into some incoherent rambling of yet more slurs. You’ve almost given up on getting anything useful when the one wearing a baseball cap asks Carl how his ‘seduction’ is going.

“The fucking towel-head bitch wouldn’t even look at me she was so scared. Her race-traitor friend called in some faggot-ass longhaired featherhead to try and scare me off, but they all ran away as soon as class was over, “ he rants, gesturing with his hands wildly. “Stupid cunt’ll learn when I fuck her and drag her to one of Hook’s fight nights so she can get fucked by the dogs.”

Another guy, this one bearded, punches Carl in the shoulder. “The fuck you will, Hookwolf don’t even know who the fuck you are. Shit, _Erica_ barely remembers your fuckin’ name and she’s in charge around here.”

“Eat shit, _Earnest_.” You hear the quieter one who hadn’t talked much snicker a bit but go silent at a glare.

Baseball cap—who’d grabbed his phone partway through Carl’s unhinged rant—waves his hand at the others. “Shut the fuck up, she’s coming!” He peels his face away from the screen and scowls at the kissy noises and whip-cracks that break out. “Shut the _fuck up_ , bitches!”

They don’t stop immediately, but do quiet down once a female figure walks out from around a building. 

It’s _Laserdream_.

She gives a little wave and walks up to Baseball cap with a smile. After gettting a hug from the girl, the guy turns on the suave—or at least what he things is suave—and introduces Crystal to Carl, Ernie, and Dave before opening the door for her and gesturing her through into the cafeteria. As the blonde passes through he smirks smarmily at his buddies and makes a spanking gesture before following the New Wave cape inside, leaving the rest of them to trail behind.

You ponder if the girl knows about their gang affiliation as you move into the sidewalk and take in their scents. There’s no way to track them separately really, but with Huginn back at the dorm they left from you have enough to track Carl back to his room if he ends up needing a personal visit.

After returning to your apartment you change into the gear you wore the day you became a cape. Hopefully the similarity will keep things from getting heated, assuming the guy you healed is around. 

You’re a bit uneasy as you land and overlook the encampment. Once again you’re not worried about _yourself_ , instead you don’t want to rile everyone up. Still, there’s no better way to find out what happened since that first night and why there’s now a little settlement.

Flying down to an alley you shift back and grab the staff that springs from the brickwork next to you. A tap on the ground as you walk and your summons form on either side and fall in next to you. Huginn remains on overwatch from the roof above.

You keep your stride nice and unhurried so you don’t get too far out of shelter before you’re spotted. The spotters are actually very good; while they’re clearly startled as hell to see a cape walking their way there’s no screaming ‘cape!’ and freaking out or anything. One of them _does_ go tearing off towards the center where the jacket still flies like a flag, but the other stands and holds out a hand to stop you without much in the way of visible trembling. You hold your free hand open and slow down further, tracking the returning figure and letting them beat you back.

By the time you’re within range of reasonable conversation the first guy, who looks to be the older of the two, calls out. “Hey Boss, you wanna talk ta Slick?”

“You—“ you begin, scratching at the side of your face but only hitting the mask, “I assume ‘Slick’ is the guy who was attacked a couple of days ago?”

“Yeah, Boss.”

Stifling your sigh—you still haven’t decided on a name, so you don’t have anything better to offer—you give the guy a nod. “Yes. Lead the way.”

“Sure, but do you mind leaving the animals? It’s a bit crowded and…” he trails off before waving his hands “but you don’t _have_ to if it’s a cape thing…”

You shoot a message to Huginn to be even more alert and allow your summons to collapse into the dirt they formed from. “I can go without, sure.” You walk a little closer and plant your staff as well. “As long as there is earth and sky I will never be alone.”

That gets a pause and visible swallows from both lookouts, the silent one scratching at his beard and mumbling quietly to himself. Kinda sounds like a prayer, or at least the ‘Holy Mary mother of _God_!’ that starts it does.

Your guide doesn’t give his name as you follow him towards the center of camp, merely marching forward with a stiff gait and not looking back at all. Silence and stillness follow you as you go, every eye watching. You realize pretty quickly that the ground you’re walking over still contains traces of your powers; it’s not the same thrumming heartbeat you feel back in your grove dreams, however the difference is one of _intensity_. The faintest wisps of power—magic—emanate from the ground you walk over and the air you breathe. It feels _good_. The grass is an incredibly dark green and seems to resist being trampled, almost shrining against your feet. There’s a faint smell that you’ve only encountered in the forests here, despite the lack of trees.

The center of the camp has what you think is the same oil drum with a fire burning as well as a couple of weatherbeaten chairs that look recently repaired. The guy that’s standing there to meet you does look like the same person you rescued the day your powers awoke but looks miles better. He’s no longer bloodstained and still in the process of healing; he’s standing up and moving around uninjured. He gestures to one of the seats and takes the other one. “I didn’t know if you’d come back, Boss,” he says, but stops when you hold up a hand.

“Can we not do the ‘boss’ thing? I still haven’t settled on a cape name quite yet, but seriously, that’s bothering me. ‘Dude’, ‘man’, whatever, just… not ‘boss’.”

That gets a laugh out of the guy as he leans back a little further in his seat and nods his head a bit. “Sure, sure, uh, man.” He shakes his head with a bemused smile before getting a bit more serious. “So look, m’names Steve, but everybody calls me ‘Slick’. I… kinda didn’t know if you’d ever come back this way or if you got snatched up by one’a the gangs or whatever, but I hoped you would.” He stops and chews his lip, nodding to himself like he’s working himself up to continue.

“I think I mighta died if you weren’t there t’other night. Wasn’t just them though, I was all fucked up already. I’d caught some shit and hadn’t even been able to get any booze for close to a day so the shakes were comin’ on and I was seein’ things, the shit I’d taken to try and fix _that_ was like stepped on or something and I’d tore myself up something fierce clawin’ at myself…” Slick trails off, staring off into the distance before a shiver runs through him and he’s back. “Whatever you hit me with just blew all of it away. _Everything_.” He looks at you and leans forward. “The next day I went and found a newspaper. It’s almost twenty-fucking- _eleven_!”

“What year did you think it was?” you ask hesitantly.

“I got sacked back in ’07. I was already drinking like a fifth a day and doin’ smack. I… like I knew seasons had passed and shit, but I thought it was like… 2009?” He runs one hand down his face and waves the other one like he’s trying to get back on track. “Anyway, I felt like my brain finally worked for the first time in forever. Set up a shelter here. Couple of the others did the same, the grass was nice and that bush over there—” he jerks his thumb behind him and your eyes flicker over to the branches that rise above his tent behind him, “—had just started making berries. So I picked some—hadn’t had decent food in too damn long.” He sighs and continues, “One filled me up like a big dinner and a cup of coffee, so I started passing them out to the guys that helped me take care of the Merchants. Don’t do as good a job as whatever y’did to me, but a berry every coupla hours’s dried people up and kept ‘em from dyin’ while they do it. No one other’n me’s _completely_ sober yet, but they do a damn sight better than anything I’ve heard of; hell, if people’d knew there’d be a fight over ‘em. So, so, y’see, I recruited some guys I knew, ex-military, and it turned into a camp.”

Before he continues you twitch you hand and interject. “I was watching the other day, it looked more like you were having a rally—or trying to start a riot.”

Slick rubs his face and groans, “More like an argument that turned into a debate. So we only have this little bit of land see, and the berries go bad in like minutes if they’re taken away from here. Buncha folks want to try and claim this spot like we was our own gang. ‘Leastways so that we got more protection from the Merchants. Empire don’t come round this far east and the ABB don’t care. Some also wanna try taking cuttings from the tree and planting them in one of the other open lots. Got a couple of guys who know about plants said they’d give it a try. We started talkin’, turned into shoutin’, got up on a stage ’n shit…” He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. “I guess I won, considerin’ no one’s gone off and started a fight with the Merchants yet, but it’s gonna happen. Generally Skidmark don’t give a shit if you don’t buy as long as you don’t rob anyone—that ain’t happened yet, but even if everyone here behaves we’re gonna get blamed. And at some point he’s gonna come down from whatever he’s on and he’ll prolly hear about us.”

“And what?” you ask. “Are you looking for help? Advice? What?”

“Shit, man, I don’t know. I know it was prolly just another, what, Friday, Wednesday? or whatever for you, but I got pulled back outta hell and now I don’t know what I’m doing. Tryin’ ta help people, I guess. Feels good, but dark times are comin’.” He trails off with a thousand-yard stare, his attention obviously going over everything he just dumped on you.

For your part, you finally tease out the magics coming from the bush that’s just on the other side of Slick’s tent. It’s a beach plum bush—but one touched by your power, as it’s huge and seems to be the thing radiating the most power. The plant itself seems to have been affected by your intentions as you cast; you were kind of thinking about cleaning up after yourself, of ‘fixing things’ maybe. So apparently the bush also sprouts fruit that ‘fixes things’—things like hunger, or addictions, or pain and wounds. It’s not particularly _powerful_ , but the fruits are plentiful enough that there has to be close to sixty people packed in around here. 

So the mountain clearing you thought was just your mindscape has intruded—however slightly—on reality. And the guy you rescued with your powers is now trying to control what might be the embryo of a gang and might be some kind of… homeless commune?

With a _thrum_ that only you seem to feel that moonless sky and mountain clearing superimpose themselves over your sight. You’re looking at the trees that surround your campsite and in one of them you can see Slick’s face in the bark, crowned by the plum bush’s branches. He _is_ the tree and also the bush and yet still human. And you are… you’re not quite a shaman nor a medicine man, and after listening to Slick’s story you don’t feel very much like a wise man either, or at least you have no magic words to fix all of his problems.

Before this moment you wouldn’t have said more than you were a cape with a multitude of tricks, really, but feeling the bleedthrough of your inner world into the outer you find yourself wondering if you aren’t actually more than that. Without turning your head you hear the whispers of the Tree, the flutter of the Horde, and a rush in your veins from the Beast. Knowledge imparted—somehow—you snap back to full reality and know that this man has been touched by enough of your power that you can impart some of yours to him for a time. But should you? Should you even offer assistance with any of this?

You lean forward and hum lowly, “I don’t want to intrude on whatever you have going here directly—I don’t know any of these people and they don’t know me—but I’m not the type to just walk away either.” You nod your head towards the bush in the background. “I’ll take a shoot of the bush and plant it over in the next lot. While it grows I can help anyone here who needs healing, but no bringing in everyone in the entire city, and I only heal those who come willingly.”

Slick nods his head rapidly, rubbing the palms of his hands on his pants, “Sure boss—I mean, man.” He stands as you do and follows beside you as you walk around his tent and up to the bush. There were a few people gathered around either picking berries or talking, but they move off as the two of you approach.

The bush is easily ten feet in diameter—likely more—and taller than you are. The plums themselves are large, almost peach-sized, and thickly-bunched. Reaching out to brush a hand over a branch you get a feel for the plant. While it’s getting some of its nutrients from the soil here, it’s _also_ getting… fuel, you supposed, for the curative effects of the berries from your inner world. A bit of coaxing from you and the branch you touched straightens and swells, turning into a staff topped with leaves. 

Turning to a staring Slick you make a gesture with your free hand and he shakes himself out of his gaping before leading you towards the open lot. He bellows for somebody named Dwayne and you’re met by a scrawny guy that looks to be about three-quarters jacket by weight. The slight man tenses rigid as he looks over at Slick before your bearded guide claps him on the shoulder. “You want offa that shit, right Dwayne?” At the other’s nod Slick looks back at you. “Can you start with him?”

Holding your hand out partway you incline your mask to the short man. “If he’s willing…?”

Dwayne swallows nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his eyes flicked between you and Slick. One dirt-crusted hand comes up and scratches at his neck,“Yeah. Yeah, please.”

You tap the back of his hand and let the verdant shoots work their way through his body. Slick heads towards the nearest lot even as Dwayne follows blindly behind, staring at his hands. 

Some talk between the men and they pace out the center of the lot for the planting of the bush. You join them there as they continue discussing things. 

“…not gunna be able to move ‘em around tonight, man. Gotta get that pile a bricks out the way first.”

Slick nods along, stirring one arm around in a circle. “Yeah, then depending on how big it gets, wanna make sure there’s space all around to move. ’S _way_ too crowded over there.”

Tuning the two of them out you plant the staff into the ground and invoke _Mend Earth_ at the same time. There’s resonance from the already-affected lot right next door as the lush grass spreads outwards from the suddenly-grown bush. The debris both men had been discussing melds into the ground and the paved section that was previously an alleyway between the lots dissolves into yet more grass. 

There’s a yelp and a chuckle from behind you even as you continue manipulating the bush. You don’t want to force its growth _too_ much, maybe the reactions and desires of the people around it might alter the properties of its fruits.

You turn back around and look at Slick and Dwayne, the latter’s eyes bugged out and staring and the former giving you a grateful smile. The shorter man scrubs at his ear with his knuckles and finally lets out a ‘huh’. “Guess I didn’t need to worry ‘bout the bricks.”

Smiling behind the mask, you hope it makes it in to your voice. “Nope.” Switching your attention to Slick you twitch your head towards the camp, “While I heal I have some questions about how the Merchants do things—I’d like to get a better idea of where they meet and the like.”

Slick nods his head and sucks air in through his teeth for a bit before nudging Dwayne to get his attention. “Go get Lilah and bring her here first. She needs to get fixed anyhow, and she knows the most. I’ll grab a couple of the guys and get everyone else rounded up.” 

As Dwayne hurries off Slick turns back to you. “I’m gonna have people come t’you rather than you walkin’ round the place. Lilah c’n answer questions ‘bout the Merchants better’n anyone here.”

“I was planning on harassing them if I could catch groups, so details would be good,” you say.

“Just… try and do it a bit away from here? Ain’t nobody payin’ attention to this area’n I’d like to keep it that way for a bit.”

Looking to see Dwayne leading someone over in your direction you hum in agreement. “I understand.”

Lilah sticks her hand out the moment she gets near you, then can’t stop feeling her face as the scabs and sores fade. She cries silently while staring off into the distance and shaking, whether in sadness or anger you didn’t know.

In any case, the woman collected herself after a couple of minutes and stood beside you as the first couple of people trickled in, led by Slick. As you started healing she began a rundown of what she knew.

…which was a _lot_ , seeing as she handled drug distribution for a fair amount of the northwest side of the city. The Merchants were an oddly-configured gang, with little desire to hold or fight for static territory. While there were plenty of thugs and general gang members wearing the Merchant’s symbols, many more dealt drugs in all areas of the city, even under the other gangs’ noses. 

Skidmark—while ostensibly the boss—didn’t have anything close to total control of the gang. He wasn’t _just_ a figurehead, though his authority over the section of the gang that dealt with the creation and transportation of drugs was... high-level at best. ‘We need better weed’ or ‘The Empire’s pushing coke, sell more heroin and get people speedballing’, that kind of thing.

The cape also handled the fighting forces, what little they were. From Lilah’s description he was far—very, _very_ far—from a tactician or general, but instead seemed very good at asymmetrical warfare. It helped, of course, that Squealer had a number of Tinker-made vehicles with cloaking devices in them to make hit-and-runs so effective.

The majority of the gang was the distribution side. There were a number of people in positions like Lilah’s previous one where they coordinated underlings both shipping drugs into the city and distributing them afterwards. When she describes how the drugs and money flow it sounds more than a little like some kind of pyramid scheme. When you mention that Lilah gives a bitter laugh.

“You’re not wrong, doll,” she says, handing a plum off to the woman you just healed. “An I thought I could make loads’a cash and party all the time and never come down.”

“And now?”

Lilah’s teeth are perfectly white in the encroaching twilight, her previous meth-mouth cured when the regeneration grew her a new set. “Now I wanna watch you kick so hard his balls come out his mouth.”

You laugh a bit as the next person comes up and you heal them. The older guy wanders off and sprawls on the grass around the tree like a number of the others that preceded him. “Sounds great, but you keep saying that there’s no good hideout to find him in.”

“‘cause there ain’t!” she declares. “Look, there’s this rumor that the old lighthouse is the main base or something. Yeah, they use it for shit sometimes, but how big d’you think the thing is? Ain’t no space for Squealer’s shit, barely enough space for the strippers.”

“So I’m not going to find much around here then.”

“Not really, the Docks’ don’t got any people other'n us, and we all go downtown anyway if we can.”

Once the crowd peters off and Lilah’s given you more information you slip back into an alleyway and take off. You fly westward and like she said there’s few people on the streets. After crossing over into the Docks South area and more residential areas the population picks up quickly, however. 

Using some of the tips you find a number of smalltime dealers in the various strip malls and mostly-empty shopping centers, a couple even in the process of selling. A check of one or two of the distribution sites she knew about come up empty-ish—you can certainly smell the lingering scent of weed, but it’s incredibly faint even with your enhanced senses. 

You’re doubling back to check on one of the dealers when they apparently decide they’re done for the day and lead you back to a jackpot. Or if not a whole jackpot, at least a modest win. It’s a couple of blocks over from one of the old locations, the faded sign on the front claiming to be a rental furniture store. Most of the lights are off in the front and the closed sign is flipped but flying over to the rear shows movement around the back. Small wrapped bricks are being loaded into the trunk of a car while a handful of guys sit around smoking. The first car isn’t even finished getting loaded before a second one, lights off, pulls in and money gets handed over. 

You’re not willing to just jump in and ransack the place; it’s possible you’d find more information with a stealthy infiltration instead. Asking Huginn to watch the place more you make your way to the ritual site to see what the PRT’s done with what was probably the _other_ little bleedthrough of your internal forest.

...on the upside, the trucks and people are gone. 

That’s only because they’ve apparently taken all the samples they wanted and scoured the rest of the area with fire. Whatever was used had to be hot, there’s spalling from the concrete and inside the building some of the metal debris has been reduced to cooled puddles of slag.

Despite that, walking around you still feel _something_. Not nearly the same power you felt down at the homeless encampment, just the faintest stirring against your senses. Not quite willing to attempt the meditation you engaged in here previously—it took way too long and would leave you vulnerable—you shift into something catlike and pace about the area, even climbing onto the dead machines. That’s where you finally place the feeling.

It takes a bit of probing, but the only remaining organisms appear to be some kind of moss—or lichen—hiding in the ways of one of the milling machines. The plant… thing has taken root in the metal of the machine, quite literally. You’re able to manipulate it free and some experimentation shows that while it looks like pretty much any other moss you could find growing on dirt the plant has instead woven itself into a thickly-carpeted mass that resists your efforts to rip it by hand. You collect all of it that you can find and some metal debris for it to feed on.

You have plenty to look into the next couple of days. In order to prioritize, you’ll focus mostly on...


	7. Ceiling Chepi is Watching You / An Absolute Clusterfuck of an Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Racial slurs, homophobic remarks, and similar horribleness from what are effectively Neo-Nazis.

Swinging by the homeless camp in the morning—even though it’s in the opposite direction from campus—you see that Slick’s got his people more spread out. That’s good; the place looks a lot less like they were trying to spontaneously turn into the Kowloon walled city now.

Leaving them to their expansion you head in to class and hold a couple of seats for the girls. You hear them—well, one of them—before you see them; an ungodly honk from outside heralds Jordyn’s entrance as the blonde walks in blowing her nose with enough force to equal a nor’easter. 

You wait until they’re settled, Jordyn with a box of tissues in hand, before looking at her. “What happened, are you allergic to me?”

“It’s probbly a sinus in—” she stops to cough wetly and then blow her nose again, “—fection.” 

Before she gets more than some sniffles into speaking more you point your finger at her. “Silence, Sneezy.” You look over at Sabah and give her a smile, “Are you sick too?”

The Arab girl favors you with a wan smile. “No. Jordyn has been sniffling a bit for the past couple of days but it became noticeably worse last night.” Jordyn’s foghorn-like nose blowing going off behind her triggers a visible twitch in the shorter girl’s eye that worsens when her roommate coughs loudly. “Perhaps you can help me escort her to the campus clinic to get something for it?”

“‘m _fine_ Sabah!” Jordyn manages between tissues.

“Of course you are,” Sabah says, not looking away from you. The twitch is back and you notice she looks a bit tired. “But getting checked out wouldn’t hurt.”

As much as you want to laugh you’re afraid doing so would get your throat ripped out by the smaller girl. Instead you pat Sabah’s hand and lean over a bit to look at Jordyn. “Look, I get you, but while _you_ might not remember coughing constantly as you move around, but I’m sure everyone in the rest of the dorm does. Hell, that might’ve been the rumble I heard back at my place last night.” You ignore the rather cute pout and focus on the red, raw nose above it. “Besides, who _doesn’t_ want to possibly get codeine cough syrup?”

Jordyn grumbles but doesn’t manage to formulate a rebuttal as she trails off into more coughs as class starts.

After class it takes a bit more cajoling to actually _get_ the girl into the clinic. You don’t know if it’s a fear of doctors or natural obstinance or what that causes the blonde to do everything except physically dig in her heels, you and Sabah end up sandwiching Jordyn between you and all but march her inside.

You don’t go back into the room and spend the time checking the news on your phone. There’s nothing about Shadow Stalker from any of the three organizations you’d sent the footage into yet. It _has_ only been a day and it’s always possible that none of them would ever own up to anything happening if they’re not pressed on it anyhow. You don’t really know your way around PHO but after pulling it up and finding the Brockton Bay section a quick skim through the last couple of pages of the ‘Wards News’ has pictures of Vista and Gallant doing a patrol around the Boardwalk and little else of substance.

It takes close to an hour, but soon enough you’re escorting both of the girls back to their dorm. Jordyn does have a sinus infection and has a bottle of cough syrup and some antibiotics. In addition, the couple of pills they gave her to try and dry up some of the drainage either started kicking in during the wait for her prescriptions to be filled or she’s extremely suggestible, because you end up almost carrying her and having to pour her into her bed while Sabah removes her shoes. 

You smile at the Arab girl after you finish and check your watch. “I know we don’t have classes together this afternoon, but I can walk you to and from…”

“Oh, right! Let me see if Raven is here…” she scurries out and down the hall to knock on another door as you trail after.

The tall chick with dyed silver hair that opens the door isn’t one of the girls you met the other day. She shoots Sabah a confused look before turning and seeing you. There’s a clatter as the pen she had tucked behind her ear gets tossed somewhere behind her hastily and she brushes at her sweatshirt before she very-chalantly leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms. You notice that the name by the door is broken off and has ‘Raven’ written in sharpie instead. When you look back the girl has obviously just finished undressing you with her eyes before flashing Sabah a brilliant smile. “What’s up, Sab? Who’s this?”

Sabah seems a little flustered by the nickname, bringing a hand up to press against her chest before speaking. “I was wondering if we can go to class together today. Chepi has offered, but he has classes on the opposite side of campus…”

“Oh _this_ is Chepi, huh? I see the girls talking about his hair weren’t lying,” the girl says, her eyes flickering over you a second time before focusing back on Sabah, “you’re turning down an escort from _him_?” After Sabah starts to stammer something Raven smiles and laughs. “Nah, you’re good. You eaten yet?”

“No…”

Disappearing into her room for a moment, the girl slings her backpack onto the floor as she tries stepping into her platform boots. They put her pretty much on-height with you and you are not a short guy by any stretch. “Let’s do lunch and then we’ll head to class.”

“That sounds good.” Sabah agrees.

“Great, it’s a date!” the silver-haired girl says winking at you both, her smile getting a bit wider when Sabah squeaks and scurries off to grab her stuff.

Raven—which you find is a nickname—turns out to be studying chemistry and she and Sabah share that class, although they hadn’t been well enough acquainted to realize that. After yesterday’s issue with Carl the girls spoke with the others on their floor and all of them are now aware of the creeper and have compared schedules.

“His name’s Carl,” you offer after taking a sip of your drink. Shrugging at the look that Sabah gives you continue, “I saw him and a couple of buddies after leaving your dorm yesterday and might’ve… strolled in the same direction for a bit.” You go over their general looks and names before pointing out that they came from Mitchell, the dorm right across from the girls’.

“Hmm, trying to protect your harem?” Raven asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” you deadpan. Luckily Sabah wasn’t drinking anything, it’s bad enough hearing her choke on air. “A man’s first responsibility is to the security of his harem.”

Raven leans forward, tucking silver hair behind an ear. “So what’s the second one?”

You have _no idea_ since it was a throwaway flirtatious comment, but manage to conjure something up. “The costumes, obviously.” Born of your own troubles getting your cape costume delivered you continue, “Unfortunately the harem pants and little,” you circle your fingers over your lower face, “veil-things are on backorder.”

Sabah is chewing her bottom lip so hard you’re surprised she hasn’t drawn blood. Raven’s noticed that but her hallmate’s embarrassment just seems to spur her on. “That sucks, man. Can I offer a suggestion though?” Her lopsided grin grows when you give an affirmative hum, and she spreads her hands, palm out like she’s about to drop a verbal bomb. “Collars, arm warmers, and thigh-high socks.”

“You…” you drift off for a second imagining two pale bodies bracketing a shorter, duskier one. “…an excellent suggestion.” Looking over at the Arab girl, though, this may have been a bit too far, what with the Karl thing and all. You reach your hand out but don’t actually touch her. “Sabah? Raven and I are just joking. There’ll be no harems and I have no claim on you, you know that, right?”

The short girl gives a couple of jerky nods and opens her mouth but only a squeak comes out. Raven jumps in and scoots over closer to the other girl, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, which seems to help. “Yes,” she manages on her second attempt, although her voice is faint, “I _am_ able to detect jokes.” Shooting the soft-goth and you a look she continues, “ _And_ flirting. It’s just—I’m not used to being included in it.”

You and Raven share a glance before the silver-haired girl rocks Sabah back and forth a bit. “A little cutie like you? We can _totally_ make up for it, don’t worry.” Raven giggles to herself and leans in to stage whisper in Sabah’s ear, “You’d be perfect for the Princess Jasmine look Chepi is going for anyway.”

Instead of the embarrassed squeak that Raven was probably expecting, all she gets is confusion. “Who is Princess Jasmine?”

“Oh Sabby, how have you not seen _Aladdin_?” Raven leans her head against the other girl’s and looks over at you. “Movie night?”

You shake your head sadly. “Not tonight. Unfortunately I have… work.” Giving a one-shoulder shrug you continue. “You can show her the world~”

Raven scrunches her face up. “Yeah, no, stop singing. Like _now_.”

After finishing your own classes for the afternoon you head towards Carl’s dorm. Huginn had been in a nearby tree so you know that the guy had returned over an hour earlier—your classes go longer than Sabah’s. Stashing your backpack in a sheltered spot of the roof you slither through a hole in an access hatch and start checking floors. Luckily of the five floors you first start picking up his scent on the fourth, so the search isn’t difficult. 

There’s a sign outside one of the doors with ‘Karl Moritz’ and ‘David Wickham’ written on a whiteboard. When a look around assures you there’s no one looking out of their doors and no cameras you shift into a small monkey and climb up into the drop ceiling before moving over and peeking out into the room.

Carl-with-a-k is hurriedly stuffing papers in his bag and trying to locate shoes in his pigsty of an area. You let him do his thing and rush out before directing Huginn to follow the guy. Hopping down and locking the knob from the inside you look over Karl’s side of the dorm room. You’re not sure where to start exactly, but you poke at the keys of his laptop and it starts up with no password. 

Browsing through his documents folder shows a number of nude pictures of non-white women saved with variations of ‘slut’ or ‘bitch’ (or worse) as the filenames, but there’s no smoking gun in the files as you look through them.

Switching over to his email and scrolling though nets you a couple of messages from an ‘Erica Marshall’ that look suspicious. There are talks of ‘meet-ups’ and ‘club meetings’ happening off-campus every week or so, along with comments about how one or another person is bringing ‘entertainment’. Some of the most recent emails talk about going to see a ‘show’ this on Friday—tomorrow—out in the industrial district, but doesn’t give a location of said show, just a notice to meet up ‘at the clubroom around seven’. The messaging app they use is just as full of the same information as the email, except for the addition of the boys shit-talking Karl on a regular basis, especially the past couple of days. Ernie has an extended rant about how Karl was scared of ‘Chief Faggot-hair’ that apparently set off a huge argument between all of them and contains threats from Karl to both you and Sabah.

You’re looking through the rest of his computer when footsteps outside in the hallway stop near the door and someone tries to open the door. You close programs and shut the lid of the laptop even as the angry muttering gives way to jingling keys. Leaping through the open ceiling tile and sliding it almost closed with little time to spare you peek back through and see that it’s Dave, who throws his stuff angrily onto his bed and pulls a beer out of the mini-fridge, downing it in record time. His ‘fucking kikes!’ as he throws it at a wall is loud and unrestrained—people around had to have heard it, but no one comes to complain or anything. 

Making your way back out and back home you leave Huginn to continue monitoring Karl while you finish some assignments, eat dinner, and get ready to check out the Merchant joint once it gets dark.

The buckskin outfit you’d ordered isn’t scheduled to come in until some time next week so you re-dress in the clothes you’ve been using. Before you head out, though, you move to the moss that appears to be happily feeding on the metal you brought back. A touch and a bit of manipulation turns it in to something between a cloak and poncho over your left side. Checking the look in the mirror and some additional tweaking turns the color to more of a green-gray similar to the color of weathered metal. Considering how much sneaking you do you’re not sure you really need to blend in more, but the whole ensemble gives some very nice vibes. A rack of antlers would probably fit in nicely as well, but you can’t manage it while keeping a humanoid shape—growing them also shifts you to all-fours and cloven hooves.

Dismissing those thoughts you befeather yourself and head off northeast. It’s early enough that the furniture store’s sign _claims_ that they’re open but there’s no traffic nearby and no one walking around. A single beat up car is parked out front and lights are on, but the place looks pretty empty when you peer through the front glass. A check around back shows a couple of cars as well as the glowing cherries of people smoking. 

You make your way inside via roof access once again and creep around in the rafters. The ‘salesman’ in the front is watching a TV, while in the back there’s just enough crate furniture to make it look like a warehouse and block off sight lines. It actually looks like it would pass a quick inspection if someone happened to walk in while looking for a new chair or something except for the tiny little problem that the whole place _reeks_. You’d ridden in cars that people were hotboxing in that smelled less like weed, it’s like seeped into _everything_.

Past the small facade, the rest of the place has haphazard piles of bricks of white stuff, weed, more pills than your average pharmacy spread across desks and… more bricks of white stuff. Going to Winslow like you did, you’d seen drug deals going down, but never in these quantities and you have no personal experience with them so you can only assume one is cocaine and the other is heroin. Or maybe one is meth. Does meth come in bricks?

As you watch a skinny balding guy who’s mostly tattoos separate out pills into baggies you absently wonder if you’re getting a contact high. It’s also abundantly clear that you’re not going to be able use smell to track _anything_ for a while. Even the smell of blood and rot from the Anders building wasn’t as pervasive as this stench.

Other than the tweaker obsessively bagging pills roughly ten other people are around, one or two with guns tucked into their belts. They’re mainly relaxing on couches and playing video games, occasionally getting up to transfer drugs either into or out of the cars that show up sporadically. 

It’s… you guess it’s what you’d expect of a drug den, not that you had a lot of preconceptions. The oddest part really is the pile of what looks like dusty RC cars in one corner. Crawling around more reveals that there’s a logbook, but you can’t make heads or tails of the scrawled shorthand on the open page. Listening in to the talking gives you lots of names but no information about who the people actually _are_ or where they place in the gang. 

A bit more lurking and you decide that one of the guys with a gun—name of Randy—is the one running the place. He spends most of his time smoking up with the rest of the gamers but always seems to be the one who gets money handed off to them and the one that others defer to. 

Still, after two hours of lurking, the only other lead you get is when one of Randy’s underlings shows up and Randy pauses before heading out to his car. The two of them talk and Randy assures the guy that he’ll be available to go to ‘the meeting’ tomorrow night. Another half hour with no one showing up at all makes you call it off and head home—and scare up even more to eat.

The next morning you get a text from Sabah telling you that Jordyn is still sick and in bed, so you swing by to escort the girl to your shared morning class. Karl tries the same stare as the previous class to just as little effect, but _this_ time he puffs himself up to confront you as you’re walking back to Sabah’s dorm. The short girl wilts and shifts behind you as the racist twit tries to ignore you and focuses on your companion. “You said you weren’t interested in dating but you’re strutting around with _this_ cocksucker? I can’t believe you lead me on like that you stupid bitch.” The Empire sympathizer—or gang member—keeps trying to circle around you to get in Sabah’s face. 

There’s a small crowd of onlookers, mostly white. You meet a black girl’s eyes and she looks away and moves off, obviously not wanting to get involved. Murmurs from the crowd seem to be mostly anti-Karl, as he’s being obnoxious, but there are a couple of racist commenters in the crowd. You have to shift again to keep Sabah away from Karl’s pointing finger and blotchy red face and the soft almost-sob behind you prods you to do something.

It’s… well it’s probably _fortunate_ that you haven’t unlocked the ability to shoot lasers from your eyes, because look you give the Nazi asshole would have vaporized his head. Pulling Sabah around you opposite Karl you do your best to load all the contempt you feel for him in your voice. “I am here to escort her safely due to your _creepy stalking_. You were told ‘no’ three days ago but it doesn’t appear to have made it to your brain yet. Back off.” You lead Sabah into the thinnest area of the crowd and they part for you. 

Your last view of the guy is him red-faced and sputtering while being held back by Dave. Karl looks too embarrassed to focus on you, but Dave has a fairly calculating look in his eyes. If all of them didn’t have a gang meeting tonight you’d be worried about that look.

After making sure Sabah is safe in her dorm and letting the other girls know that Karl’s been told off and to watch out for him. You leave Huginn watching over the dorms and he keeps you informed of the girl leaving with a gaggle of other girls to get dinner. She, along with her hallmates, are all back and accounted for by six-thirty or so. You have a number of choices, but without the ability to spontaneously split into two—and you tried—you can only choose one place to go this evening.

Between dumbass drug dealers and _fucking Nazis_ , you know which are more important to stop.

Once again Huginn is overwatch while you follow the four assholes to their ‘club room’, which turns out to be an empty room on the first floor of one of the older dorms. You find a closet to change in and pull your phone out to record before creeping past some ducts to get a good shot of all of the faces. About twenty people are inside; all are (as you expected) white, and only three are female. One of those, a woman with a sweep of hair over one eye, gives a sharp whistle as the last couple of stragglers trickle in. “Listen carefully to this; we will be traveling to a warehouse out in the Industrial Park. I will provide a set of directions to the drivers. Once you get to Miller Drive, slow down and turn the car’s lights off, and park back where I do; as long as we do not attract attention, the police are content to ignore the area.”

That was slightly disappointing; you were hoping there’d be a racist rant to tie the frat four two. Edging closer to the group you followed in, you watch as the woman hands out slips of paper before walking up to Baseball Cap. “Michael,” she says, “we will be taking my car. I want to talk about the Laserdream situation.”

Following the general exodus, you’re worried that you’ll either lose the cars due to speed or be subjected to clinging onto the top of one to follow along. Luckily when your group reaches the woman’s sedan she unlocks the doors and starts to get in but gets pulled away as people come up to ask questions. Slipping underneath the car and around to the open door you slide in and under the driver’s seat. The gun you find underneath ends up being less of a surprise than you would have expected but makes things way too cramped. Shooting Huginn—who had gone back to the girls’ dorm to ensure no one crept in—a message to follow you, you switch over to the passenger’s side and turn on the audio recorder as you shrink down as far as you can. 

Once whatever issues came up are resolved everyone piles into the car and you start moving. It’s actually a moment or two before the conversation starts, and it _doesn’t_ start with Laserdream. “David, I found the redskin you asked about and he doesn’t live on campus. I will not give you his address until you and Karl can convince me you won’t get caught doing something stupid.” There’s a pregnant pause before she continues, “Or _stupider_. She’s just a raghead after all Karl, stop focusing on her.”

“It’s him that’s the problem, Erica!” Karl cuts in. You can hear the shift of the seats as he leans forward, “Yeah, the muslima would be a good offering, but now that fucker is corrupting two white women—“

“Then they’re race traitors, you stupid fuck!” Erica snaps. “Miscegenation makes them unworthy of a white man’s attention anyway! Enough about the Arab bitch and the others—Hookwolf will have jobs for you after tonight. If you manage not to piss yourselves in shame then _perhaps_ you can be trusted to handle the rest yourself.”

After a moment of pregnant silence Erica continues in a softer tone, “Michael, how is the courting of Laserdream coming along?”

The baseball-cap wearing guy gives a surprisingly boyish chuckle. “Not as bad as I was worried about. She’s opened up enough to complain some about how the rest of her family doesn’t seem interested in putting in effort in doing cape work, and how Glory Girl seems to be hanging out with the Wards a lot.”

“Good. Have you started to bring up anything about the asians?”

“Just a bit—that news story about the neighborhood that got wrecked when Lung chased after Skidmark you sent me? I made a comment about how you only see that from the ABB and Merchants, the Empire cares about collateral damage. She got quiet for a minute and I thought I might’ve screwed up but after thinking about it she said ‘you have a point’.”

There’s a huff of what might be amusement, “I’m amazed that at least _one_ of you has managed not to fuck things up. Keep talking to her and see if you can find out anything about her brother as well. From looking at their family it’s obvious that they’re breeding true, so converting him to the cause would get a fine set of powers.”

Mike gives a grunt, “She said something about finding him in one of her skirts the other week. Don’t think the little faggot’d be interested in anything other than sucking cock.”

The car pulls up and turns off as Erica laughs harshly. “Drugs can fix that issue. Now come on and try not to embarrass yourselves.”

Once you’re alone in the car you crawl out and peek out of the windows. The group has moved away, towards a warehouse, so you take the chance to open a door on the far side and slip out to shadow them.

It doesn’t take super senses to hear what’s going to be inside the corrugated steel building. The barking is obvious from outside but all of the nearby buildings are dark, their parking lots empty. At a quick guess you’re southeast of the ritual site, maybe two miles from more residential areas.

Shifting back into a monkey you shadow Erica, Michael, and Karl as much as possible—Erica seems to be well-connected and you want to know exactly what the hell is going on here and where this is all going. A moment up in the roof supports has your monkey fingers switching over to the camera to take some pictures and switch back to video as you get closer.

Most of the floor appears to be taken up by cages and a fenced-off fighting ring. Some shaky-looking bleacher seats are currently empty and a number of figures are working back by the cages wrestling animals around. Blood, sweat, and that sweet rot scent are thick in the air.

Unfortunately, when Erica comes to a stop, she’s opposite Hookwolf. Even if his lanky blonde hair and inability to wear a shirt didn’t give it away, the metal wolf mask hammers the point home. Once everyone else has filtered close enough the beefy wolf-changer begins to stalk around. “Alright frat boys, you’re not here to watch for fun. That explosion on-campus last month fucked up a bunch of plans—including some experiments being done on animals. Those were _our_ animals and _our_ labs, sabotaged by sneaky race traitors and the kikes. Some of the animals escaped, and not too long ago some kid got attacked by one up around Captain’s Hill. We’re not like the chinks so we’re clearing up the mess; that’s your jobs.

“I sent some guys to scout the area off west and they’ve found a bunch of dead deer, couple’a wild boar, and a whole-ass bear killed the same way.” The cape pauses and crosses his arms. “Can you imagine an entire pack of ‘em getting unleashed down south?” His laugh is loud and harsh. “I have a couple of the dogs from the generation before and you’re gonna get up close and look at ‘em. Once you figure out what they look like you’ll be out looking for them tomorrow. Pay fucking attention or you’ll be the bait. Head that way.”

As the rest of the group moves off, Erica leans in closer to the Empire lieutenant. “And what’s the _real_ reason, Brad?”

Tilting the mask down, the taller man gives the impression of smiling behind the steel. “We caught one and turned it over to Kaiser last week. One of the eggheads said something about how it’s changed their biology. More specifically, the dog managed to _breathe fire_.”

“Did they—“

“Nah, it ended up hurting its own throat, still recovering. But that means the _manna_ experiments can create more than Brute ratings. We need as many of those dogs back as possible so we can crossbreed them.”

Erica shakes her head, “That’s what it all comes down to in the end, huh? Good breeding.”

After they join up with everyone else, Hookwolf wrestles one of the dogs out into a fighting ring. The claws scratch at his skin but sound instead like scraping metal as he forces the shorthaired dog to stand still. The animal resembles the one you’d found dead earlier in the week, but more so; the head only resembles a dog’s in that it has a snout, everything else is misshapen. There is little about its reactions that hint at reason either as it growls and tries to claw and bite at the cape. 

Hookwolf is surprisingly… scholarly about showing the dog. He points out the oddities of the missing tail and small ears and points out a few differences you didn’t notice yourself; the animal’s rear legs are longer, giving it a strange posture and oddly-slow gait when he lets it loose. A note about some of the animals having high metabolisms leads him to an aside on how a couple of his ‘boys’ would be setting up traps with drugged food and that it would be their jobs to check the sites.

Finally one of the cape’s assistants drags an older, scarred dog into the ring. This one has a heavy leather collar around its neck that Hookwolf explains will give the older dog a ‘fighting chance’.

After both animals are released, it’s clear the collar is going to do nothing but prevent a quick death. The altered dog is… not as mindless as you thought once it’s no longer held down. It doesn’t just charge in like a berserker but it _does_ appear to be singularly focused on the attack as it darts in and out with incredible speed. The older dog is obviously a veteran of these kinds of fights but the sheer ferocity of the altered animal has it on the back foot. Despite being a smaller breed—Hookwolf had mentioned it was a terrier of some kind—it only takes perhaps two minutes before the smaller animal bowls the larger pitbull over and clamps it’s jaws down on a leg. The snap of the bone is loud enough to hear even over the background noises. From there it descends into slaughter as the unnaturally-sharp claws rips out the belly of the panicking dog and the hybrid _thing_ starts to feast. The wounded animal _screams_.

Reactions are mixed; Erica hurries off and looks away, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. There are a couple of cheers and a number of _‘holy shit!_ s’ as the watchers back up even with the fencing in between them.

A trainer in a biteproof suit moves in to pull the animal away and gets attacked by the bloody beast. Hookwolf himself moves into the ring to wrestle the enraged dog as your familiar sends you a warning. _> Many beasts come this way fast.<_

_< What kind of beasts?>_

_> Big. Person riding on one. Horses? They attack now!<_

You move back so that everyone is in your vision as Huginn warns you the ‘beasts’ are charging. 

As you were forewarned, you’re the only person who isn’t surprised when one of the large roll-up garage doors blows inwards. The ‘beasts’ are… the hell if you know _what_ they are exactly. They have bone plates next to what looks like raw flesh, spikes that almost look insectile… and on forms that are indeed as tall as a horse. Two had torn the door off but four more filter in and make the huge warehouse feel very small all of a sudden.

The rider—a squat figure with a cheap plastic animal mask—gives a low-high whistle and points to Hookwolf and three of the beasts charge through the fencing like it was tissue paper. The Empire cape erupts into a quickly-expanding mass of blades just before the lead animal hits him and still gets carried all the way through the other side of the warehouse.

Even as the crashing and noise disappears outside the two of the three monsters are already bulling through the fencing had have descended on the cages while the other gets a growled ‘guard’ from the cape and prowls slowly towards the jocks.

The cape jumps off and shoulder-checks one of the guys out of their way and starts ripping open doors while giving a different whistle. One of the horse-sized things circles around and corrals the dogs being freed.

In the comparative quiet you pick up a slammed door and angry yelling from outside; a moment later thick black smoke boils through the hole the cape had created. The outline of a figure is visible for just a second as their helmeted head scans the room. Once they see the three massive beasts an angry voice yells ‘Bitch!’, but only gets a finger stabbing out at the onlookers and a gruff ‘Handle them!’ yelled back. The beast-master cape just opened a cage with an altered dog and suddenly has their attention full of a violent whirlwind of claws and teeth.

By this time people are starting to shake off their stupor. Some of the college kids are scrambling backwards towards the exit doors and away from the smoke and Erica has pulled a small gun from a concealed holster and is moving towards Michael and his group. It looks like she’s trying to line up shots on both the cape and the newcomer but the walls of muscle and armor and smoke is making it difficult.


	8. Close Encounters of the Third Reich / Bearing Yourself

_< Huginn, cover me>_

You summon your horde as you send the thought and before you’ve finished handing the singular monkey you summoned the phone to finish recording your familiar coalesces out of the shadows. _< New trick?>_

 _> needed. spend too much time in nests.<_ The burst of exasperation is a more detailed emotion than you’d previously gotten from the spirit-infused raven. 

That gets a chuckle from you even as your hands begin to trail smoke the color of concrete. Waiting until Erica is close enough to get caught in the spell you manage to grab the group plus one of the others who was nearby. 

Dropping down from the walkway you’d hidden on the rest of the Horde gathers around you. Doing your best to keep sightlines disrupted until you’re close enough to Carl and the rest to disable them also makes it difficult to keep an eye on what’s going on yourself. Fortunately Huginn is filling in, so as you’re about to turn a corner and charge in you get a warning that one of them has broken out.

There’s no way... it has to be a cape.

Instead of exposing yourself you peek around and see Mike kneeling down and pulling at Erica’s encased legs, the concrete encasement slowly deforming. Suddenly the reason he’s putting the moves on Laserdream makes sense. He tries a punch only to pull his hand back with a cry that’s swallowed up in the general din. So strong but _not_ invulnerable? Half an Alexandra Package?

Tapping your foot on the ground dense bushes rip their way through the floor, the sound like a rockslide as shards tumble against each other. You’d summoned them just past where the Empire goons were trapped and both Mike and Erica’s heads swivel to watch.

That’s when you send your four summons crashing into Mike’s kneeling form, bowling him into the middle of the thicket of pain. Wooden snaps from broken branches sound out as he thrashes reflexively against the attack. You see the thorns embedded into his flesh as he howls in pain and tries to break out. 

A mental command has one of the dog-summons turn and mime at leap at the trapped woman, grabbing her attention as she snaps off two well-aimed shots. 

The summons—formed of concrete and steel—doesn’t react in the slightest as you manage to close the distance and grab her wrists, wrenching the gun free. As it clatters to the ground to be snatched up in the jaws of the summon and tossed off into a far part of the hedge Erica tries to claw at your mask, her hair flying wildly around. 

And exposing her eyepatch.

With a rune on it.

You dimly realize you’re growling as your free hand comes up to her neck. It was an attack by Othala and Victor that had shattered your highschool girlfriend’s family; they had gone out of state for the funeral during spring break and never returned. Your last memories of her was a tear-filled phone conversation before she blocked your number. The faint heat-haze as you strip her vitality from her shimmers between you, her face murky and unreal even as her weakening attempts to poke at your eyes slacken. 

The Nazi cape’s head flops to the side as she falls unconscious but it takes actual effort to release her. Killing her would only bring retaliation from the entire gang on every non-white person in the city. Or at least you convince yourself of that. That doesn’t make you any less angry and your blows rain down on the others caught in your spell, the strength of the hits sapping their strength even faster. 

Only a few seconds later Carl and his group are panting and winded. As you continue towards where the beast master was more bushes erupt from your feet, trapping them in a maze of blood-thirsting thorns.

You arrive in the middle of yet more chaos, a panel van squealing in reverse towards two shouting figures and only two of the huge beasts. The master is wrestling one of the altered dogs and losing by the looks of it; the cape’s leather jacket has one arm in tatters and its thrashings seem to be trying to disembowel them as well. most of the cages are open and the freed animals are yowling and whining, trying to find an escape. The few that remain appear to be the altered animals and they’re attacking the bars instead.

Snapping your fingers, you gesture at a couple of the mutts trying to make an end-run around the back of one of the larger animals, drawing everyone’s attention as the dogs stop and gather around you.

“Who—“

“Who the fuck are you?” the dog-masked cape growls, running over a similar comment from the motorcycle-helmeted cape. Their body language sets off something in the back of your mind—they’re defensive and angry at more than the fight the monster in their arms is putting up. There’s jealousy there too for some reason. Nothing you can do about it though, so you dismiss it. A whistle from them has both remaining beasts orient on you. Your own summons bracket you even if they’re massively outweighed.

Still angry after the Othala revelation, you snap back, “No, what the fuck are _you_ people doing? I was _trying_ to get video evidence of Empire gang members and you start a fight with fucking _Hookwolf?”_

Motorcycle-helmet, who has wisps of smoke leaking from his sleeves, steps in between the two of you. “ _Not the time_. If you’re not willing to help…” The muffled voice sounds vaguely familiar.

“You’re rescuing them?” At the nod you turn and gesture to the pack. “Come on, in the back.” Turning to point into the open cargo area and see the driver watching you—with a gun in her hand, although it’s pointed at the ground. 

The dogs pause at your feet as you watch the green gleam of her eyes flick around you in fits and starts. A grin spreads across her face. “Oh no, don’t mind me, keep going.” 

... _that_ voice you know. You heard it underneath the Anders building earlier this week. A glitter in the cape’s eyes tells you _she_ just realized you know, and another twitch makes you _think_ that she knows that _you_ know that _she_ knows....

Wrenching your attention away and turning back to the gathered dogs you mime leaping up and moving far back. “All the way in, they’re taking you out of here.” After a moment of hesitation the closest dog sniffs your hand and looks up at you with a _boof_ ; like the bird last week you don’t directly speak the language but get the gist. “Yes, food later.” A chuff of air seals it and the dogs stream between you and the blonde, scrambling up into the cargo truck. A flicker of thought from Huginn tells you the raven has the purple-suited cape marked if she tries anything so you turn back to dog-mask, who seems to be losing their wrestling match with the deformed animal while arguing with helmet-head about keeping the feral things. 

You get half a word out of your mouth to try and convince the cape to leave them when the building shakes and blades carve furrows in the flimsy metal of the walls. The scrape of metal-on-metal fades off into the distance along with the growls of the huge cape-beasts, but the the altered dog uses the surprise to fight their muzzle free and clamp down on the cape’s hand, drawing a pained yell. One of the master’s own huge beasts reacts even as you start to move, a single snap of their jaws tearing the smaller animal in half.

Despite being bisected the berserk thing stays clamped down until you and Helmet pry its jaws off and toss it aside. Even as it bleeds out it drags itself towards the three of you on its front legs, mouth dripping with bloody foam as it snaps and growls. It’s mid-bite as it dies, murderous to the last breath.

“Fuck, with you down we’ll have to come up with another way to distract Hookwolf in order to get out of here.” Helmet frets, looking between the master and purple-suit. “Leave the rest of them, we need to _go._ ”

“Hand,” you interrupt, holding your own out palm-up. Beastmaster freezes with their shoulders hunched before tilting their head up at you. The dog mask has been twisted on their face and you get a hint of bared teeth but you continue, not looming over them but remaining firm against whatever bullshit machismo they have going on, “You need to use your hand, let me fix it.”

It only takes a second for the hand to be extended and laid on yours, but it feels like an eternity as the fighting outside gets louder. A tap later and they’re able to close the hand into a fist. You pull your hands back, “It will heal gradually over about five minutes then stop. As for the remaining dogs, they’re all like that—a tiny dog fought a pitbull and completely murdered it. They’re...” you shake your head, “they’re not _rabid_ , but they attack like they are. They don’t seem to care about anything other than killing.”

A minute lessening of the tension in the master’s shoulders and a grunt is all you get from that. They take a step towards the next cage and watch as the little dachshund does its best to bite through the bars—there are actual dents in them. Turning away they clamber up onto one of their beasts. “Take the dogs to my place.”

“Your—“ Helmet starts.

Dog-mask jerks their head back towards purple-suit. “She knows where.” You get a stare and the bare nod of a head. “Thanks.”

The master and the remaining two beasts take off and the sounds of the Hookwolf fight head off into the distance slightly. Helmet looks between you and Purple, then over at the thicket. Now that the dogs and fight are no longer so loud the shouting from the Empire goons is audible. “Call it in?”

The blonde oozes smugness, “Velocity isn’t scheduled today, Armsmaster’s patrol doesn’t start for twenty minutes. I called it in three minutes ago. Even if they scramble, they won’t arrive for fifteen.”

Helmet swirls his finger between you and her and gets a nod from the woman. He sticks his hand out and you shake it. “Thanks for the assist.” A moment later he’s moving towards the front of the truck and climbing in to the driver’s side.

As you turn back to the smug blonde her gun hand shifts and Huginn’s sudden appearance on her shoulder, beak on her neck, finally, _finally_ wipes the smirk off her face. A split-second of shock shows before her other hand comes up, palm out. “Hey! I was putting it away!”

You take a few steps to her left side to make it more difficult for her to aim. “Go on, then.”

Once her little pistol has disappeared into one of her pouches and comes back empty Huginn moves his beak but stays on her shoulder. She slides a phone out of a different pouch. “I’d like to talk later.” Even with your familiar so close a hint of smugness returns as she cocks her hip and it draws your eye. “I know this was more personal than you wanted to admit out loud. We might be able to come to an... agreement about fighting the Empire.” She offers you the phone and you pause but take it, sliding it into a pocket. Her smile gets just a tiny bit wider when you do. “I’ll text the number sometime tomorrow and we can set up a chat.” She turns away and pauses as Huginn flaps up on top of the truck before strutting away, enticing you with the sway of her hips. 

The truck takes off and you ponder the sudden flirtation. There was something off about it—well, off about this whole-ass vigilante hero group—but there’s always time for considering it when you’re _not_ standing in what was an Empire dog-fighting ring with the PRT closing in. You look at the cages containing the experimented-on dogs. You look at the cages containing the experimented-on dogs. Your first (and second) thought is to just mercy-kill the berserkers. You can’t erase whatever research the Empire’s done already, but killing these crazed beasts would keep them from being unleashed on civilians. 

Moving closer to the nearest cage you spend close to a minute trying to get anything from the dog other than aggression. This time you don’t get the feeling that you barely understand the language. You know _exactly_ what the dog that’s trying to break through the bars is attempting to tell you. It wants to kill you and eat your corpse. There is no chance for compromise, no willingness to back down.

You raise your left hand and the bottom of the cage warps and runs over the animal’s body, immobilizing it completely. Your right hand thrusts up, a thinner pillar erupting with enough force to punch through from the bottom of the skull and pulverize the entire brain cavity. 

There’s a tremble in your hands as you move to the next cage and try once more to get anything other than rage from the animal. You fail, and once again end a life. The tremble turns into a shake.

and then you do it again.

and again. 

and again.

The only one of the altered animals to offer you anything but aggression is itself a survivor of the other dogs’ attacks. The wounds you see have—surprisingly—been stitched closed, the hair nearby shaved back. The dog looks young and somewhat more… doglike than the more altered animals, having larger ears and equally-sized legs. Perhaps that’s why it had been attacked, not being quite the same as its more deformed brethren. Even ignoring the wounds the dogs is somewhat runty even with the large paws and gangly limbs of a puppy, but rather than rise to attack it’s clearly still too weak to put up a fight. Its mismatched eyes watch you warily as you open the cage and reach for it, offering little more than a soft growl.

You’re a bit concerned that this puppy too will end up attacking you, but you’re sick of the killing. You’d thrown up at one point, barely managing to move the mask aside enough to do so, and you’ve cried behind the mask enough you feel the tear tracks down your neck. Pulling the dog out and laying it nearby you channel a minor version of _Mend Earth_ , shifting the warped metal back to its former shape and vanishing traces of your passing. 

Calling the monkey to you you retrieve your phone while sending Huginn out to verify the coast is clear. When he tells you no one is around you run out in a canine form and head into the darkness, more thorny hedges erupting in your wake. The hiss of escaping air from tires and the squeal of thorn on paint as you entrap the cars ensures that even if anyone managed to escape their binds they could only leave on foot.

Once you’re far enough away you shift to a raven and you and your familiar wing back towards your apartment. Not all the way, though. You’re not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but you’re hardly a luddite. Purple-suit was probably a Thinker—the Protectorate mentions how they have ‘Thinker-tanks’ to help them, so you’re familiar with the term. Or maybe she’s a Tinker like Armsmaster, Kid Win, or Gallant—or Squealer and Leet now that you consider it, the Bay seems lousy with them. Either way, it’s completely possible she’d be able to track the phone somehow. You drop it off on a rooftop, sticking it in an old shed-looking thing on a rooftop about halfway home. You’ll... think on the offer.

After you’re ensconced in your apartment you stand in the shower and let the water pour over you. You’re getting used to sneaking and spying. Hell, you felt completely comfortable spying on _Hookwolf_. Once the fight broke out though? With your summons and spells you’d count yourself a match for a dozen or more random gang members, but monsters like the beast master or Hookwolf were something else, something you couldn’t hope to match at the moment. 

You’re fairly sure you’ll be pulled back to the mountain tonight. This time there’ll be no looking around and gaping like a tourist, you’re going to put serious thought into what you need to improve.

Finishing up you shift the dog to the bathroom and make yourself food; you’re distracted from your brooding by Huginn trying to steal fries from your plate. The feathered thief is damned skilled, more than once you have food snatched out of your fingers mere inches from your open mouth.

It’s only after you wrap a hand around the familiar’s beak and give him a narrow-eyed stare right into his glowing blue eyes that you remember to ask. _< What’s up with the shadow-movement thing, anyhow?>_

Pulling his beak free the raven Incarnate preens himself smugly. _> as you get strong, I get strong. you choose your ways, I choose mine to help you.<_

 _< Your thoughts are getting clearer too,>_ you flick a scrap of meat that fell off your burger and watch the bird snatch it from the air.

Huginn puffs up and gives a soft _kraa_ before cocking his head. “ _i learn more_ ,” the raven croaks at you. It’s not super clear, but with the mental connection assisting you understand completely.

You startle but smile at the bird, “How long have you waited to spring that on me?”

 _> short time. two, three sleeps?_ Huginn spreads his wings just a bit and wiggles them back and forth. “ _it hard_ ”

Reaching out you pet his head. “You’re doing great, buddy.”

Once again you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and awaken back on that mountain clearing. What you see when you open your eyes, though, isn’t the shimmer of stars. The sky has been completely blotted out by the silvery, shining liquid that had been spraying from the two worm-snake things. As you get to your feet you realize that it’s raining down but wherever it touches it is absorbed immediately. Looking over to the spring you see that it’s full—and oddly _that_ silvery liquid is ever-so-slightly different than the stuff raining down on you. 

As you gather the offering from the spring and turn to the far side of the fire you can see the many spirits of the Horde out and floating around the Trough like they’re dancing among the droplets. 

…the Beast is _also_ playing, laying on his back and occasionally batting paws as if to catch the liquid in its paws. You turn away and make a noise before turning back and see the great predator regarding you regally. You manage to stifle your laugh but the Beast’s eyes narrow anyhow and he chuffs and turns his head in what you can only describe as a pout.

Notwithstanding the embarrassment it feels, the Beast takes your offering in its quadruped form this time, lapping at the liquid like a dog. After it finishes and the bowl dissipates it throws a leonine head back, loosing a howl of such force that the rain is pushed back. If you hadn’t already been expecting the incarnation of your primal side to do something showy that kicked you out of the grove you’d be more irritated, but instead you find yourself awake and looking at your wall, a rumble in your own throat powerful enough that your phone is rattling and about to fall off your nightstand.

It’s barely after dawn but you feel fully rested _and_ a bit restless, so you roll to your feet. After you get out of bed you find that whatever the rain was, it strengthened both your primal self as well as your ability to summon. Your strength and resilience are noticeable differences, though. You’re not about to summon a Horde twice the size in your apartment, but the strength in your body is amazing. A quick run down to the parking spot your bike is in shows you that finding a good spot to grip the frame is more difficult than actually lifting the whole thing. It also impresses upon you that your skin is tougher and more resistant to a bit of everything; you ended up setting the motorcycle back down on your foot and didn’t notice until you tried to step away.

Before you see how the girls are doing you and Huginn check on the dog from last night, who you’d stashed in the bathtub after your shower. Despite how weak it seemed while you carried it home, the raw chicken you’d left has been devoured, the bones cracked into splinters and the marrow sucked out. 

The dog doesn’t snap at you when you offer a hand but remains somewhat standoffish—almost like it’s expecting _you_ to attack.

 _> bind him<_ the raven suggests.

_< What if the aggression comes back when he’s healed? I could find a different dog, maybe try outside the city for a wolf…>_

Huginn hops up on the edge of the tub and cocks his head to regard the dog from multiple angles. _> he will grow to be very strong, with sharp claws and teeth. when you call a spirit to join with him, call a spirit of earth. they are slow to anger and wise. then he will be strong in battle and calm out.<_

 _< …do I want to know what kind of spirit I called to join with you?>_ you ask with a bit of trepidation.

The raven flexes his wings slightly, the blue glow that sometimes shines over his wings flaring. _> you have guesses?<_

You stand and cross your arms. _< Trickster spirit. I’d bet money.>_

 _> spirit of sky.< _ Huginn _kraa_ s , amused. Turning to preen some feathers he side-eyes you. _> you may consider me trickster spirit.<_

“Smug-ass raven,” you mutter, walking back into the kitchen and looking for where you’d put the terracotta bowl. “While you’re being a smartass, do you have any ideas on where to do the ritual?”

As it turns out, he did. Huginn takes you to the far west section of Brockton U’s campus. Or at least it’s probably still part of the campus; to the west everything turns into forest and back east a service road leads back to the maintenance buildings and the like, but the closest actual building is a warehouse close to a mile away with no one around on a weekend. 

While you mark out the ritual site and start the fire you continue to chat with your familiar. “So why here?”

 _> far from other space. hidden, but close to your learn-nests.< _ Huginn pauses and tilts his head back, opening his beak and letting out a passable—but creepy—imitation of a laugh _> also close to mates.<_

_< They’re not even close to mates, my man.>_

_> you want to make eggs with them.<_

Wow, _that_ was going to make things awkward the next time you saw them…

The ritual only takes around an hour this time; not only did you know what you were doing, Huginn was able to offer assistance during the process. As the spirit melds with the dog bronze sparks leap from a suddenly-wagging tail. There’s a feeling of gratitude as the merger completes, the wounds healing and fur sprouting back. 

_> thank.<_

_< You’re… welcome? Why the thanks?>_

The dog’s thoughts are scattered, as if it’s still pulling itself together. _> everyone always angry. always fight or get nothing. now… better. you calm.<_

You reach out and scratch at the puppy’s head and smile as his short tail wags. “There may be fights, but against others, not us fighting each other. Let me clean the place up and we’ll head home and get you more to eat.”

A _mend earth_ spell later and the copse of trees you performed the ritual in have gained close to thirty feet in height while the ground is now thickly carpeted in emerald-green moss.

After you get back to your apartment, you shoot off a group text off to Jordyn, Sabah, and Raven asking how movie night went you make yourself coffee and start the process of pulling video and audio off of your phone. The usefulness of recording things can’t be denied, but losing your phone could be a problem if you ever need to call the PRT. You don’t exactly have a huge amount of excess cash, so rolling that Merchant stash house or something may be in order so you can get a GoPro or two to stick on a summons.

To your surprise, it’s Jordyn who answers your text first.

 **J:** it wuz good

 **J:** problem tho: now sab and rav are sick

 **J:** there at the clinic now

As if summoned by that explanation, you get a couple more texts.

 **S:** Aladdin was very cute, but yes Raven and I

 **S:** Have similar symptoms.

 **R:** we feel like crap, dude

 **R:** this *sucks*.

Some additional texting back a forth—you were going to suggest you bring a pizza over and watch something—turns into coming over in the afternoon with soup and maybe something sweet and watching something with the convalescing group.

Or maybe some liquor, as Raven claims that her entire family does hot toddies when they start to get sick. You _do_ have some whiskey around the apartment…

With your morning free you shift and head over to the homeless camp to check in on them. Looking at them in daylight and having given them a couple of days to rearrange things the place looks much nicer. With the additional space even though it looks like they’ve added some more people things are much less crowded, with space to navigate between shelters. 

This time your approach is handled a bit more calmly. At least the guy who heads back to (presumably) give Slick a heads-up isn’t running like he’s on fire. 

You’re escorted not to the seating right in front of Slick’s tent, but instead what appears to be a small shed made from a half-sized shipping container. Lilah is leaning back in a chair and eating a plum while Slick stares at a map laid out on a table. “Boss!”

“Really, Slick?”

The older man combs at his beard and waves a hand around, “I got years of calling people ‘Boss’, I can’t just turn it off, man.”

Shaking your head, you give a chuckle and grow yourself a chair. “Fair enough, it’s just weird hearing it. In case it helps though, I’ve decided on ‘Manitou’ as a cape name.”

Letting the chair fall back onto all four feet with a _thump_ , Lilah cuts Slick off before he can talk, “Ain’t gonna help, he won’t remember.”

Slick points a finger at her, “Shut it, woman.” He turns back to you, “She’s right though, it ain’t gonna help much. I’ll try to remember. Anyway, I was hopin’ you’d come by soon. ‘member how I said Skidmark’s bitches weren’t payin’ attention to us? Well now they is.”

“That was only like three days ago, Slick. What’s changed?”

The older man flips the city map aside to reveal another one, this time just of the northeast. The homeless camp is marked and a number of red ‘X’ marks appear to be surrounding it, four or five blocks out in each direction. “Dunno, but this started up ‘round midnight. Got ‘dealers’ sniffin’ around—ain’t much of nobody to sell to, and some’a our guys been runnin’ em off—but seems like to me they know something’s goin’ on ’n this is Skidmark’s way of findin’ out.”

You groan. “And here I was going to just check in and take a couple of plums to test some things.”

“Th’ fruit goes bad just a coupla minutes after leavin’ here…”

“I think they’ll be okay for me. And if not, you gave me a fair warning.” You conjure up your summons and let Huginn (who’s perched himself on the roof outside) direct them over to grab a dozen or so of the magical fruit. While Lilah boggles (and Slick does too, just a bit less) you stand and walk over to the map. “Are they still closing in now?”

Lilah manages to shake herself out of it, “Nah, light scares ‘em off. Like vampires.” She snorts at her own joke and points out three areas. “There ain’t a lot of Merchants that work during the day. Most likely got some kind of fire lit under their ass after some yellin’ by Skids, it got late or they had shit to do, and they called it off for the moment. If Skidmark’s the one who told them to look around here then it’s likely he just said that and nobody’s talkin’ to anybody else. West group’s prolly Randy’s people. He’s gonna send some cars in to drive ‘round. Southwest went up towards Randy’s people ’n there were a couple of fights we didn’t start. Not sure who’s turf it is nowadays, but they look more interested in muscling in on the old man’s joint.” She rests her finger and taps a couple of times on a mark to the south-east, right near the start of the Boardwalk. “Now _that_ use to be Rachelle’s area. Pretty easy if you slip some bills to the Enforcers, lots of sellin’ to the tourists who come stare at the Rig ’n shit. If it’s Rachelle, I know she don’t give a shit, prolly won’t be back. Even if someone else’s handling it now it’ll be the same.”

“She was tryin’ ta convince me to try and egg on th’fight ‘tween Randy’s group and th’other,” Slick offers. 

“Why would Skidmark care in the first place?” you ask. “Is he gonna demand protection money or something?”

“Honey, he’ll chase us out for no reason at all. _But_ , if he figures out how those plums heal people he’s gonna end up doin’ something with ‘em. Let people OD, bring ‘em back, ’n charge ‘em for it. Or blackmail ‘em,” Lilah says, shaking her head. “Might just have Squealer run the whole place over and tell us to fuck off too, dependin’ on what he’s on.”

Turning your mask to Slick you give him a good, long look. You can’t read minds, but he appears to be asking himself if it wouldn’t be better to crawl back to the pills and alcohol rather than try to fight a gang. “You’ll probably want some backup, huh?”

“Fuckin’ _yes_ , boss.”

Lilah breaks in again. “I think we’ll be okay for a day or two. If we get a fight goin’ they might even get into that and forget us. But you’re not gonna be able to stick around the whole time, hon.”

Holding out your arm you send Huginn a thought and the familiar phases through the ceiling to alight on the perch you’re offering. “My raven can watch. Fair warning though, it takes me five, ten minutes to get here, so don’t go asking for help at the last minute.”

Huginn hops down to the table and looks over the map. Slick gives the bird a wary look, slowly back up to look at you. “Seriously? Do we gotta tie a note to his leg?”

“ _no_ ,” your Incarnate croaks, launching Slick off the chair to hide against the far wall with a yell. The electric-blue-eyed bird cocks his head at the frightened man, “ _is okay. I friend._ ”

You jerk your thumb at your familiar, “Like he said. Anyway, no Harry Potter shit needed. Just keep him informed and he’ll keep me informed.” You call the summons in and retrieve the fruit from the their mouths. Being made of dirt, there’s no saliva, even if you’ll need to wash the plums off before you use them. 

You haven’t decided on a name for your canine familiar, but you’re using ‘Spot’ for the moment. He follows the summons in and sits on the floor next to where Huginn is. The elder of the two Incarnates has taken to try and get the newborn caught up quickly. “The other is also my familiar, but he’s been recently hired. Huginn—the raven—is giving him on-the-job training.” You smirk behind your mask at the look both adults give you as you continue, “Anyway, I got a thing. I’ll try to stop by again either tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Stopping by the phone that purple-suit gave you last night and checking it, it has plenty of battery and a series of messages: 

**Tt:** So you’re probably going to hide this phone and not look at it for a while.

 **Tt:** Which is fine.

 **Tt:** You’re new though, so I’d be happy to answer questions

 **Tt:** and perhaps see if you’re right for our group.

You put the phone back and shake your head. Not something to deal with when you have three sick girls to help and a possible Merchant scrap on the horizon.

Your _original_ plan was to just to offer each of the girls a beach plum. Then you decided ‘eat this magical fruit’ probably wasn’t the best idea, so you formed Plan B: make smoothies out of them. Tossing one of the fruits in your hand the ideas coming to your mind make you swerve to Plan C. Plan C takes you through two different Asian markets, four new-age hippy stores, and a Seventh-Day Adventist spice shop. 

You feel a little like a mad scientist as you chop up some fingerroot and elfwort to add to the rest of the herbs. On the other hand, stirring the tisane with a willow stem as it brews makes you feel like you should be doing this in a cauldron with a witch’s hat on. It seems strange to look at something and feel knowledge trickle in about how to mash, chop, macerate, or otherwise extract properties and form what can only be called magical potions. You’d gotten pulled in to a game of D&D back in middle school and played plenty of video games, so the idea of things like health and mana potions were familiar to you. 

This wasn’t quite the same, though. It’s not like you looked at the plum and knew that combining it with ingredients X, Y, and Z would output a _potion of cure disease_ or anything like that. Instead you had browsed the aisles of those stores and picked out roots and herbs and seeds that felt like they could enhance the body’s natural healing. Combining some of the liquid with pureed beach plum and honey tuned the magical fruit’s general detoxifying powers to boosting the immune system but spread it out over time. No reason to heal the girls so quickly it got suspicious.

So the afternoon finds you picking up an early dinner for you and the girls along with two thermoses—your new herbalism senses told you that adding whiskey wouldn’t hurt, so Raven could get her hot toddy after all.

Raven has apparently been hanging out with Jordyn and Sabah all day to try and minimize the chances of her roommate getting sick too, so when you knock on the girls’ door and get let in there are three red, chapped noses and a small chorus of phlegmy coughs that greet you.

After unpacking the food and getting settled, you somehow manage to have all three girls leaning against you—Raven and Sabah against your sides, Jordyn in your lap—while they turn the Disney movie they’d been watching back on. You’re not really a fan, but it’s mostly background noise as the three of you chat. 

Somehow capes come up and it turns out that Jordyn, at least, is kind of a cape groupie. Well, cape _aficionado_ , perhaps. Still, you hadn’t been, so maybe they’d know…

“So last night I saw a cape riding on some kind of monster. Huge, like a horse, had a couple of them. Cape was wearing a dog mask. Any ideas?”

“Bitch!”

“Hellhound. Or Bitch, yeah.”

“Really? Language!” Sabah exclaims, scandalized, from your left. You give her an amused look and she almost hides behind her long, dark hair, uncovered for the first time since you’d met her.

Turing to the other side you laugh and nudge the silver-haired girl on your right. “So Jordyn I get, seeing as she outed herself as a cape fangirl. What’s up with you?”

Raven pulls the toboggan cap down farther on her head and blushes. “Ah— my Dad works at the PRT building.” She looks up, waving her hands in front of her. “Not like, one of the troopers—he does IT stuff—but they get briefings when capes might be moving through the area. I remember the one about her mainly ‘cause dad said ‘Bitch’ at the dinner table and my mom yelled at him while the rest of us laughed.”

“That was a woman?” you ask, blinking. You had no idea.

Jordyn shifts on your lap and looks back at you, pursing her lips. “Wow, rude.”

Sighing, you turn back to your noodles as the two girls run through what they know about the cape. Some of it seems pretty wrong—Bitch certainly didn’t seem to be using mind control on the things—which makes you suspicious when Raven claims that those fucking tanks were actually _dogs._

You shake your head, “Nope, bullshit. I’ve seen smaller minivans, how in the hell is that a dog? How can she hide them? They’re like dinosaurs or something.”

Jordyn jumps in this time. “So there are claims—no video—that people have made where she has a regular dog-sized dog and like,” the girl twiddles her fingers together like a magician, “cape stuff happens, and the dog gets all huge. One of the dogs only has one eye and it’s been seen a bunch of times, so they gotta shrink back down somehow.”

Not much you can say about that. One of the supposed dogs _did_ only have one eye too. You still think the beasts didn’t look very much like dogs at all, but did it really matter in the end? “Huh.”

“How close were you? Where’d you see them?” the blonde girl follows up. “I’ve never seen a cape in person.” She stops and waves a hand when you all give deadpan stares. “Like a _cape_ in a _mask_ , not like Laserdream and Glory Girl. They’re weird and don’t count.” She huffs and wrinkles her nose at her roommate’s soft giggling, “They don’t!”

Amazingly, you have an alibi ready. It’s one you’ve used before on your mom when you needed to get out of the house. “Friend of mine from highschool’s family owns a little Mexican restaurant. He had a couple of no-shows and I’ve filled in for him before.” You shrug, “Free food, right? Anyway, I was taking some trash out and heard all kinds of screaming, looked out the alleyway and there they were just hauling ass on by.”

There are a couple more questions about it as everyone finishes up and the four of you shift around. You end up pouring mugs of ‘honey-plum herbal tea’ and warming them in the girls’ tiny microwave for everyone. Sabah goes for the non-alcoholic version, but both Raven and Jordyn take the toddy. You’ve just pulled yours out last and are about to start sipping when you pick up a commotion from outside. 

Walking over to the window there are a _lot_ of flashing lights outside the boys’ dorm—the one that Karl and his Empire buddies were in. A smile, no, a straight-up smirk forms on your face as a bunch of Brockton cops head in. From your vantage point it _also_ appears that not a single one of the police are white. Your smirk gets big enough that you’re waiting for the top of your head to pop off.

“ _Ray_ - _ven!_ ” Sabah squeaks from behind you. You turn to see the soft goth with her face buried in her mug. The hand that isn’t cradling the drink has the hem of her shirt caught in it and is pulling it down and stretching it. The pale skin you can see is blushing, Sabah is blushing, and Jordyn is staring.

“Did I just miss something?”

Three ‘no’s’ of various indecipherable tones are your reply, so you shrug it off. “Lots of cops over here.” There’s a general scramble to see, then you all exchange looks and troop downstairs. 

A fair-sized crowd has gathered and while the girls confer with some of the others from their dorm you find a group of non-white guys smiling and laughing and walk over to chat.

…maybe ten minutes later you catch back up with the three and you all head back up to the room. “So I met a couple of guys from the dorm who got kicked out while the cops work. One of them—Jamenison—apparently lives on the floor above where the cops were raiding and was able to look through the glass on the stairway doors when they got told to leave.” You sit down on Sabah’s bed and pull the short girl into your lap and give her a hug. “One of the rooms they’re searching is Karl’s—your stalker.”

“Oh!” the Arab girl snuggles deeper into your arms with a shocked sound. She hides it well but underneath the baggy sweats she’s in you can feel the faintest tremble no matter how hard she tries to stifle it. A couple of minutes later she wiggles partially out of your arms, reaches over , and snags your half-full mug from where you’d put it down and takes a sniff before throwing the remainder down her throat. A moment later the burn hits her and you snatch the cup before it falls as she coughs a couple of times and tosses her head. “Ffff _uck_ him!”

The hands slapped over her mouth and wide brown eyes show she wasn’t quite expecting that out of herself; she buries her head against your shoulder and you feel your shirt start to smoulder from the heat of her blush. Jordyn looks almost as shocked by her quiet roommate’s behavior, but Raven ends up laughing so hard she falls off the bed.

You head home a little after eight. The tisane _did_ seem to have lessened the symptoms in all three girls—or at least the room had stopped being a constant symphony of coughs and blown noses. Raven had gotten cuddly with you after Sabah recovered her equilibrium and left your lap, but you’d noticed a number of considering looks from the slim girl out of the corner of your eye. 

A check-in with Huginn tells you that Slick and company don’t seem to be in any immediate danger, so you continue to edit the video and audio you’d pulled off of your phone earlier before heading to bed. Some of the talk with the girls reminded you that Laserdream—Crystal—doesn’t exactly live on campus, so dropping a copy off would have to either happen in person right before class (and thus exposing yourself), or would need some additional thought given to it. Considering it’s only Saturday and your aged machine takes long enough to do even basic video editing, putting off the delivery until at least Monday is the better idea all around.

The next morning you have a text from Raven pretty early asking if you’re free to chat. You shoot her a text back and she calls you shortly afterwards. The conversation is… weird. The girl sounds a lot like she’s trying to play amateur detective, at least when comparing it to all the ‘detective work’ you see on TV. There’s lots of attempts at leading questions about how much you saw of Bitch’s dogs, why you went off to talk to people about Karl and company, all of the ingredients in the drink you made.

You can hear dorm sounds in the background, so you don’t think she went running to Daddy because you smelled too capey or anything, but on the other hand something—or _things_ —you’ve done recently has apparently aroused suspicion in her.

…and then there’s the line she drops on you when you ask why she’s asking about the drink. 

“Dude, I’m not thinking you _drugged_ us or anything; you drank the same stuff after all, it’s just that, well, my nipples are healed.”

You are _so_ confused. And a bit aroused. “What the _hell_ , Raven?”

“I got ‘em pierced Friday evening. They were still sore up until like right after I drank your tea stuff and then they stopped bothering me as much. When I checked this morning, they were healed. And I feel almost back to normal too, barely have any drainage. So like if you wanna share the recipe I’d love to have the stuff, ya know?”

Well, _shit._

“Raven,” you sigh tiredly (and you just woke up!) “You’re not Sherlock Holmes. Stop trying to interrogate me and just ask what you want to ask.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. When she speaks, Raven’s voice is quiet like she’s doing her best not to be heard by anyone. “Are you a cape, Chepi?”

And that was the question you were dreading. “Do you think that if I was I’d actually answer that question over the phone? I’d rather you come over to my apartment and ask me incredibly intrusive questions in person.”

Raven’s laugh is short, “Before yesterday I’d love to intrude on your apartment, but just in case you’re secretly a villain I’m gonna say no. How about a cafe?”

You think about it. Short of meeting in the middle of campus or somewhere equally public that’s probably the best you’ll get. “I suppose, which one?”

“Nah, I’m gonna go first and call you to show up,” the girl says. “Be about half, three-quarters of an hour.”

You’re pacing your floor and throw the hand that isn’t holding the phone out, “And how do I know that isn’t some weird PRT sting because you think I’m a cape?”

“Dude, you slipped three girls a potion. Be glad I’m not freaking out more. _I’m_ trusting that you’re not another Heartbreaker, _you_ trust that I’m not setting you up, kay? I’ll call you in a bit.”

Raven might not be ‘freaking out’, but the wait’s going to make _you_ freak. You try to take your mind off of things by checking in with your familiars, but nothing’s going on at the camp; most people are sleeping. 

Sabah has sent you a ‘good morning’ text with a picture of her smiling, so you chat with her for a moment. She tells you that she feels better, but there’s no suspicion in what she says before she tells you she’s going to get breakfast.

It might not be the best idea, but you’re jumpy enough that working off the energy seems like the only thing you can do. You fly over to where you’d stashed ‘Tt’s’ phone. After typing and deleting text multiple times you settle on ‘While I appreciate the offer, I would prefer to work alone for right now. I would be willing to exchange information about gang activities in the future, although through some other method. I’ll let you know.’

Vague, but while the view was great (she filled out a catsuit _very_ nicely), the fact that they were working with Bitch, who was wanted by the PRT—supposedly for murder—makes you a little squeamish. There’s also the gun thing, which at the time just kinda heightened the naughty danger, but on reflection could very well have been deadly for you.

Unfortunately that didn’t take too long so you fly back to your apartment and get on your motorcycle. Yes, you might be having a talk about how you’re a cape with Raven, but there’s no need to just fly down and fucking change back if she _is_ part of a sting. You’ll be a normal dude on a normal bike.

It felt like forever, but a little over a half hour after she hung up on you Raven texts you an address. Checking it out on your phone’s map you see it’s in the middle of Downtown, maybe a bit towards Arcadia. Traffic is light and you know a couple of places where you can make detours so you’re there in ten minutes when you told her it’d be more like twenty. Parking a bit away you scout around with your heightened senses first before shifting to a bird to check out rooftops. You go so far as to look in windows, but see no sign of any kind of ambush nearby. Raven’s picked out a seat far away from any other patrons but within sight of them and seems to be ignoring the huge drink and cinnamon bun in front of her, instead looking around and checking the time on her phone.

Walking in to the cafe like you own the place you get yourself a drink and the first thing you can point at from their pastry case. You’d studiously ignored her while you ordered, but as you turn to walk towards Raven in your bike leathers she doesn’t even try to hide that she’s eye-fucking you so hard it’s almost physical.

Setting your plate down you do a bit of that yourself; without the hoodie or sweatshirt she normally wears the black shoulderless dress and fishnets-and-chunky-boots are awesomely eye-catching.

Raven leans in, dark blue eyes flicking over your jacket, “Is that your cape outfit?”

You were going to draw things out to ensure she wasn’t entrapping you but the honest-seeming question breaks the tension. You laugh. “Jesus Christ, Raven! I rode my bike here, they’re bike leathers.”

“Oh.” Her eyes flick down to the table and she winces a bit, “Sorry, got ahead of myself. So you _are_ a cape, right? You didn’t just slip three girls some unknown Tinker shit you found on the ground?”

That… sounds bad, put that way. You look around and see no one appears to be paying you much in the way of attention and lean in yourself, “Yes, I am a cape. I made the potion.” You hold your hands palm-out and raise your eyebrows, “The only effects were general healing and boosting of the immune system. I’d meant to make it go slower so it was less suspicious, but apparently that didn’t work out.”

The girl nods to herself a bit, wrapping her hands around the gigantic cup of whipped cream and coffee and takes a sip. After a moment she shakes herself out of it and looks up at you, “I’m sorry about you getting your powers. I’m guessing it sucked.”

…what?

“…what?” You give the gray-haired co-ed a blank look as you try and figure out what the hell she means.

“Your powers, dude. I’ve looked through some of the information my dad’s brought home over the years and there’s always stuff about how you need to treat new capes carefully because triggering only happens in—” she brings her fingers up and makes exaggerated air quotes, “—cases of extreme duress.”

Rubbing at the side of your face you realize that either _you’re_ weird or the PRT is. “That’s not like, even close. I was in no danger myself or anything. I saw some homeless guy getting beat on by Merchants and thought about how I wished I could _help_ , but that wasn’t the first time I’d seen something like that, _or_ the first time I’d wished I could do something about it. It just… happened.”

Now the two of you are staring at each other, obviously confused. Raven starts to speak and pauses a couple of times. “But you’re a Tinker, you’d need time to be able to make stuff, right?”

You’ve been shaking your head a lot but you do it again and turn to your pastry, some kind of apple-cranberry thing that’s actually incredibly good, “I’m not a Tinker. Or not just a Tinker, or however that works. Just figured the potion thing out yesterday afternoon, actually.”

Raven groans and sticks her head in her hands. “Dude, I was _trying_ to be helpful after we got past this ‘don’t feed me random Tinker drugs’ thing, but now I’m completely lost. If you’re not a Tinker, what are you?”

“Uhhhhh….” You consider what you know of cape stuff, which mostly comes from TV shows. “I’m… not a Thinker? Not sure what the other options are.”

Over the course of close to ten minutes, Raven lays out what she knows of the PRT’s cape classifications and you try to keep track. When she’s done she pulls out her phone and texts her roommate that she’s fine—apparently she’d told her that she was going out and to call the cops if she didn’t check in.

You use the time to count up everything you can do. You’re not about to spill _all_ the little fiddly details to her, no matter how cute she is, but having some system to keep track in really shows you how varied your abilities are.

“Okay, we’re good,” the soft goth says, chugging back her drink, “So like I was saying, a lot of capes do more than one thing. Laserdream, Photon Mom, and Shielder are all like Movers and Blasters. Glory Girl is a Mover and Brute, right? So what are you?”

“Well, I’m not a Stranger or Breaker… and if Tinkers are supposed to use technology I’m not that either.” You count off on your fingers, “Oh, and not a Thinker.”

“That’s it? You can do everything else?” she asks you, confused.

“I mean, I think so, yeah.”

“You’re a Brute.”

“Yep.”

“Mover?”

“Also yes.”

“…Blaster?”

“Ye—eh, maybe? Is there like a range requirement?”

Raven shrugs, one pale shoulder rising. “Is it like a laser or anything?”

“Nope. Probably Shaker then.”

Furrowing her brow, Raven picks up her fork and steals the last bit of food off your plate. “Dude, I don’t know what the fuck. Are you a Trump too?”

There’s a _lot_ of shrugging going on, you’d guess due to how squirrelly trying to pin down powers is. “Theoretically, yes. It’s like I know what I can do, but I’ve never actually _done_ it in that case. Like I said, the potion thing was new too, I’m still figuring things out.”

“You have more ratings than like all of New Wave, Cheps.” Picking up her drink and shaking it, she frowns when it comes back empty. “So I’m convinced that you’re not stalking us girls or being creepy. Now I kinda wanna see what you can do.”

You’ve been hiding all of this and a tiny little portion of you wants to show off, so you get it. “Ehhh, the problem with that is I need space. It ain’t happening in my apartment or your dorm room unless you want me to wreck the place.”

Raven bites her lip through a smirk and then laughs when you give her a look back. “Business first. Are you telling me you can’t find a spot to rock out in?”

“Well… I found one yesterday but it’s all the way on the far side of campus. Like, so far out that it’s halfway to Middlesex County.”

“And? I drove too, so follow me back to campus and wait out of sight while I get into something warmer. If you can do some Changer shit I wanna see it.”

“Alright, but why do I need to hide?”

The rolled eyes you get are a bit insulting. “Chepi, you’re Sabby’s knight in shining armor. I had to pry her off of you before she overheated and fainted while you were holding her. She’d want to follow and I thought you were keeping this on the DL.”

She has a point—you actually have a couple of messages from the girl just checking in on you—so you concede it and end up following her car back to the university and doing circles around a parking lot until she shows back up. You need to do a little work to find the service roads that lead back to the area where you Incarnated Spot yesterday—flying makes stuff like that trivial, being on the ground adds to the difficulty.

After the two of you get off the bike and walk into the same stand of trees. Raven stops less than ten feet in and starts looking around, then walks back out. “That’s weird as hell.”

Walking out to join her you look over the taller trees. “What is?”

“Like three steps in and I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of like, miles of forest.” She walks back in and turns to look at you. “Even though I see your bike and power lines and shit it’s like I’m in the middle of a national park.”

Catching back up with her, you lead the girl to the clearing where you’d done the ritual. The moss is even thicker as you touch the trunk of a tree and grow a chair out of it. Something that to you is simple—hell, you’d done it at the homeless camp yesterday—has the tall girl running her hands over the wood before she turns back to you. “Holy shit, Chepi.”

Waving that away you shift back and forth on your feet, suddenly… not _nervous_ exactly, but kinda like that. “So I can summon animals made of like, dirt or stone or wood or whatever’s around, really.” Just _doing_ it seems anticlimactic and you can’t find it surprising that as if responding to your thoughts, a staff forms in your hand for you to strike on the ground so it looks a little more impressive. You don’t want to flood the place, so only a half-dozen animals form to the girl’s surprise. You let one of the mossy mountain lions pass close enough for her to reach out and touch.

“You summon stuff like this and you said that’s not all? This is pretty fuckin’ awesome.”

“Yeah, so I can do a couple of tricks that don’t involve animals. Some are either hard to show off or loud, so I’m not gonna do _those_ , but one grows a bunch of thorn bushes, like this.” 

After watching the thicket burst from the ground she gets up and heads over to it, your summons trailing after her. You walk up as well and watch her examining the bushes, even whipping out a pocketknife and chopping at a section of branch that _isn’t_ filled with thorns. “Please tell me these big-ass thorns don’t like, have poison on them too.”

You chuckle a bit, “Nah.”

“Pretty sure they’re harder than normal wood though,” she mutters more to herself than you, trying to cut off a twig. Despite her knife looking well taken care of all of the sawing she attempts barely gets anywhere before her grip slips. 

You’d been wondering if that’d happen, and manage to interpose your hand before she gets more than a bad scratch. Honestly, it’s barely bleeding when you tap her hand and cast _Bloom_ on her. The wound heals in moments, but Raven snatches her hand back and looks at the vines play under her skin. She’s almost vibrating in place, her eyes wide as she looks at you. “Holy shit that’s a rush!” 

“Tell me about how you feel.” You’re pretty interested in this, actually. “The people I’ve used this on were generally pretty beat up or detoxing. Bitch’s hand was pretty messed up, but she left pretty quick after I did it.”

Instead of immediately answering you, the girl pulls back her sleeve and smacks her own arm a couple of times, then runs in circles. “I’m fucking _wired_ , like twenty cups of coffee, and I’m not feeling any pain.”

“Does it make you wanna fight more? You wanna throw down?”

Raven shoots you an incredulous look, “Nah man, but even if it did I’m not gonna throw down against a cape. I just wanna _move_.” Rushing over to the chair you created out of the tree she tries breaking one of the limb-slats and manages it with some effort. “Might be a bit stronger too. Not much, but some.”

You let her play around and wrestle with the summons (who you ensure are _very_ careful) for a couple of minutes before she sits back and wipes her forehead. “‘Kay, I don’t feel nearly so buzzed.”

“So how—“

She anticipates your question and cuts you off. “I’m not any tireder than if I’d been doing all this normally.”

“I don’t think ‘tireder’ is a word, Raven.”

Raven throws herself into the wooden chair and winces against the lack of cushion. “Hush. So like, I assume you actually met Bitch since you’ve mentioned it both today and lied about seeing her run by dappled in the moonlight or some shit.”

Moving to stand in front of her you nod. “Yeah, it wasn’t planned—I was stalking Karl so I could out him as E88 and get him kicked off of campus. Also, one of his buddies was dating Laserdream or something, so…”  


“Wait, _what?_ ” Leaning forward the slim girl looks confused. “Crystal’s in one of my classes, I’ve kinda known her since Arcadia—we didn’t run the same circles, but we’ve talked and she’s like, all preppy and nice. Totally not the Empire type.”

You open your hands. “I have video and audio. It kinda seems like the guy was getting help trying to… not like _seduce_ her seduce her, but more like how to bring up things that the ABB did in a bad light while also flirting with her.” Waving a hand you continue, “If you’re willing I’d really like if you’d listen and watch through the edits I made to make sure I’m not giving too much away. I was gonna turn it over to her… somehow. But before that I was going to show you one other thing.”

“Your creepy potions?”

“Does it look like I have a kitchen out here?” you huff. “No, you said you wanted to see Changer shit.” You shift into the largest thing you’ve managed yet, a respectable black bear.

“Holy shit!” Raven launches herself out of the chair and directly towards you. Right before her hands make contact she suddenly jerks back. “You’re still you, right?”

Nodding, you try to talk and only manage some deep ursine rumbles. Sitting back on your butt you hold your paws out before shifting to a wolf.

This time she doesn’t hold back and plunges her hand into your fur, doing her best to pet you like you’re the family dog. You’d’ve never thought it, but getting scratched behind the ears feels _great_. You’d almost be down for belly rubs too, but the last thing you need to do is show her you’re anatomically correct.

Nudging the girl back a step you shift into your favored raven form and you’d swear there are actual fucking _sparkles_ in her eyes. “Please tell me you can fly.”

You launch yourself into the air, shrinking down a bit to keep from slapping branches with your wings. You wheel around and show off a bit before perching yourself on the chair. Raven’s running her hands over you and asking you to spread your wings within seconds, a wistful smile on her face.

After letting her play for a bit you hop away and shift back. “So, yeah.” You run your hands through your hair and grow your own chair. “Thank you,” you say, not able to meet Raven’s eyes, “I really don’t have anyone to talk to about this, and didn’t really realize how much it would help.” Forcing yourself to look back at her you manage a smile, “Some help on turning the video over to Laserdream without looking like a crazy person would be nice. I can’t do the same thing I did with the Shadow Stalker vid—“  


“ _That was you?!_ ” Raven shrieks, jumping to her feet. She sees your confusion and waves her arms, “I don’t know a lot about it, but like we have a family chat and dad was bitching the other day about this woman from the Youth Guard hovering over his shoulder while he was digging through email logs and trying to find where some video came from.” She laughs and gestures towards the phone in her pocket. “He didn’t even know what it was for at first, I guess she stepped away and started talking to a bunch of other people and dropped Stalker’s name. Supposedly the director’s been in meetings like, constantly, and no one’s going up to that floor if they can help it because the yelling is _loud_. There’s all kinds of rumors about her being some kind of psycho.”

“Fuck,” you groan. “Yeah, I found Stalker and some other girl I don’t think was a cape. Followed them and the girl took a fucking tee-ball bat and beat the shit out of some guy. Like, he was wearing ABB colors, but she ambushed him and just whaled on him. Then Stalker comes down and pulls out a knife and starts talking like she wants to turn it into a murder so I stepped in and ran them off and healed the guy.”

Raven’s eyes are wide open and her mouth’s dropped in surprise. “Shit, I know the Wards’ PR kept playing her up as the edgy one of the group but I didn’t know she was like, _actually_ crazy.” She pauses for a moment then asks, “Are you going to turn over the Empire video to the PRT too?”

You shrug. “Maybe? I’m still like, winging things, but like I said I was trying to find a way to let Laserdream know about her boyfriend being a Nazi. Hopefully that’d give me something of an in with New Wave so I do some… networking? Is that what capes do? Team ups?” Shaking your head you continue, “One of the people Bitch was running with made noises about recruiting me but she seemed a bit too flirty about the whole thing.”

“What the fuck have you gotten up to already? Didn’t you say something about only being a cape for like a week? Can I see the videos?” Raven might’ve _claimed_ that she wasn’t wired from your _Vigorous Bloom_ spell, but she either still was or was super pumped watching you shapeshift.

Pulling a thumb drive out of your pocket you hand it over. “I kept it around in case you were trying to turn me over to the PRT. Y’know, so I could show I wasn’t a villain.”

Raven presses a hand to her chest like you stabbed her. “Dude, I wasn’t going to narc unless you started talking super crazy. I figured you’d just triggered and _were_ just kind of trying to help in a weird way.” She stops and blinks, “Which I guess you were trying to help, but seriously, no more slipping us stuff. Ask me first, okay?”

You nod and the two of you stand and make your way back to your bike. Slipping back onto the back roads through campus you stop a ways from her dorm to let her off. After she climbs off the she turns and throws her arms around you in a fierce hug. “I’ll text you if I get ideas about the Crystal thing, okay?”

“Sure, and thanks—“ you stop when she covers your mouth with her hand and does her best to look stern. It fails as she bites her lip and leans next to your ear. 

“I’m here if you need me, Chepi.” 

Her walk away isn’t a flirtatious hip-sway like Tt’s, but you feel a lot less conflicted about the ass you’re watching. Your phone dings with yet another message from Sabah you amend that. _Mostly_ less conflicted. The Arab girl is cute, but you’re not sure if she’s actually interested or just feeling happy and including you in her friend group. 

Once you get back to your apartment you change and make your way over to Slick’s camp. Slick is asleep, having apparently been up all night, but Dwayne’s kicking around outside the shack and Lilah is sitting in the same chair from yesterday when you walk in. Your check in with your familiars lets you know they’re kicking around in the area doing some combination of scouting and play.

“I assume everything was okay since Huginn didn’t say anything?”

The older woman shoots you a look. “Was you the one that taught ‘im to sit in the corner and repeat words that people say in that voice of his?”

You settle down in the chair you’d made yesterday. “Anything bad he’s done he taught himself.”

“Riiight.” She doesn’t even try to sound like she believes you. “I’m glad you showed up when you did though.” Rubbing the heels of her hands against her eyes she continues, “So Rachelle’s people didn’t do shit, kinda like we expected. Dwayne took some guys down south and found out the other guy’s name is Jorge—‘the Hammer’—s’posedly.” She cracks a grin when you laugh at the name, “Yeah, I know. So this Jorge guy’s people just went directly for Randy’s people and completely ignored us. Normally I’d be happy about it, but they shot up the day center too.”

“You’re going to have to help me, what’s a day center?”

“It’s like a homeless shelter than don’t let you stay overnight. There’s places to shower, food, you can get mail, that kinda thing.” She reads the tilt of your head and continues. “Overnight shelters were apparently a thing back in the old days when Marquis was still around and the ABB was still a bunch of smaller gangs. Shit’s too dangerous these days.

“So the center being shot up; it’s closed for a bit. Not much we can do about that—they ain’t even guessing how long it’ll be yet—but it’lll never open back up if they fuck the area up too much. It’s a nonprofit that runs it, gets grants from the city. Too much fighting and they’ll just write it off.”

You poke at the map and let Lilah show you where this day center is—not quite equidistant between Randy and Jorge’s turf, about eight blocks west from where you are now. “And what did you want to do, take one of them out?”

“Love to, but that’s a lot of muscle to deal with and it’s not like they’re all together in one place to make it easy. Slick’s been playin’ it careful and keeping us out of it and I think that’s alright, but if you’re comin’ around you might be more willing to do somethin’ a bit more direct.”

You wonder if she’s gotten the go-ahead from Slick about it or if she’s doing this behind his back. “Lay it on me.”

She roots around in a bag at her feet and drops two cellphones and a wallet along with an ugly-ass jean jacket. The back has the Merchant ‘M’ along with a sledgehammer airbrushed on it. “Some’a Jorge’s boys got in a crash last night. They got pretty fucked up and were carted off to the hospital. This’s their stuff we looted from they car. I was hopin’ that since you was in Randy’s countin’ house before you could go back and fake something and leave stuff as evidence.” She smiles and taps the phones, “‘Specially these, they got notes and shit where Randy can figure out where Jorge’s at.”

“Just like the other day. You want them to fight each other directly and leave this area out of it.” You poke at one of the phones and look through some of the contacts. There are _addresses_ listed. It’s honestly baffling, like if you started keeping names and photos of your friends on your cape phone. “You really think they’ll stop coming around here?”

Lilah throws up a hand in a ‘who knows’ gesture. “For a minute, yeah, but any bit’d help. We really need the breathing room so we can figure out what the hell to do. Slick keeps coming back to tryin’ to wrangle some of the guys inta renovating one of these buildings. Guess a couple of them know how to steal power, said somethin’ about getting plumbing working…”

“Which is going to bring the city down on you.” You point out. “It might work better if you sold weed or something instead, just so you had cash to bargain with.”

“Ignoring everything that could go wrong there, like people smoking all your product before you sell, you gotta have it to sell it, and you gotta know where to get more to keep it going. At that point we might as well try to take over the fuckin’ Merchants completely ’n just scale it back to herb and shrooms or something.” She looks over at you skeptically, “Could you even take Skidmark?”

You burst out laughing. “Oh hell yeah. Squealer might be hard until I found a way to crack open whatever Tinker bullshit she’s driving, but Skidmark would be fucking _cake_.”

“I ain’t sayin’ I want you to fight him, but I feel better when you say that.”

She _totally_ wants you to fight Skidmark. It makes you wonder how exactly her fall from grace happened and if the Merchant cape was directly involved. “I have a couple of ideas on the Randy thing. It’ll need to wait until it’s dark out though.”

On your way back out you collect Huginn and Spot. You still haven’t decided on an actual name for your newest familiar yet, but he seems content with ‘Spot’ for the moment. Heading back to your apartment the three of you eat and you discuss your plans with them. Huginn does most of the talking but Spot will be the one handling your summons as you work, and manages to make himself understood and offer a few suggestions of his own.

While you wait for nightfall you end up texting with all three girls off and on. Jordyn and Sabah’s chats are just friendly ones, but Raven comes up with a way to drop off a thumb drive to Laserdream. It _will_ involve shapeshifting into a bird, but with Raven’s assistance you can namedrop yourself and let her know her boyfriend was a Nazi without being _too_ incredibly stalkerish on campus. You run out and grab a USB stick and write a note to wrap around it.

Once it’s finally dark enough that your Merchant plan will work you head over to Randy’s spot with the bait while Huginn and Spot catch up. The place is packed with men and Randy’s ranting and raving about how Jorge is trying to make him look bad.

It takes less than ten minutes for you familiars to show up and in that short time you’re already sick of the Merchant’s bullshit and are considering strangling the guy. Luckily (for him), you summon your Horde and hand off control to your familars. 

Huginn takes the singular bird you created and has it perch on the power line leading to the building while also keeping an eye on the two Rottweiler-looking dogs ready to chase any escapees. 

On your signal the bird cuts the power, dropping the drug house into complete darkness. Without waiting for the shock to pass, Spot crashes in through the back door leading a herd of short gorillas—the closest you could get to a humanoid shape. The summons are very careful not to strike any of the gang members _too_ strongly, but the relative strengths show in how the Merchants are knocked around anyhow.

In the pandemonium you drop to the floor and shift into bear form, the small safe that Randy stores his cash in being crushed beneath your weight and hammer blows. You need to shift back to human to load the money into the bag you brought, but your eyes adjust supernaturally quickly to the dark. One of the summons has the jacket, which you’d slashed at with a knife to weaken, ripped from its body, one of the phones and wallet stashed in a pocket. You ‘drop’ the other phone near the wrecked safe as you move around and scream ‘Fuck you Randy, feel the Hammer!’ into the gloom. With any luck that will help the idea sink into their dumb little heads.

Spot’s group knocks as many bodies down as they can, streaming out the front and crashing through the glass and around the corner. You slip up into the rafters again and watch as phones are finally fumbled out of pockets amidst curses and the flashlights are turned on. The whole process took maybe a minute and everyone is still shaken up from how wildly the lights are swinging around.

Randy bellows like a wounded animal as the destruction becomes ever more apparent. Over the next half-hour they manage to find some larger flashlights but fail to restore power to the building. You’re about to head out and let Huginn and Spot watch over the group when someone finally notices the jacket among the crushed game systems and destroyed couch. Randy grabs it and shakes it, sending the phone clattering to the ground. 

“That fuckin—“ he starts, before he manages to get into the phone and look at it. He’s silent for two long minutes before he looks up. “Chuck, call up the rest of the boys. If that bitch wants a fuckin’ war, he’s gonna get it.”

Sounds like this could derail Skidmark’s plans to look in to the area for quite a while, depending on how it goes. You... 

AN: with thanks to Bob Saget on QQ for the better title for post 15.


	9. Foundational Work / We didn’t start the fire / Skinwalkers and Bloodsuckers

# Foundational Work / We didn’t start the fire / Skinwalkers and Bloodsuckers

You’re sure has hell not going to _stop_ any of these assholes if they want to do something stupid. Getting the cash you looted out of the way seems like a decent idea, and while Randy’s dramatic declaration made it sound like they were riding for Jorge’s place immediately, what _actually_ happens is a bunch of phone calls and scrambling to find weapons in the dark.

Leaving Huginn and Spot to keep a lookout you drop the duffle bag back in your apartment and head over to Jorge’s hangout. 

The main building is the end house in a series of row houses but after creeping inside you can see that they’ve made holes in some of the walls and repurposed the others into grow houses. It’s probably only a drop in the bucket of the total amount of weed the Merchants handle, but the drip feeders, grow lights, and hydroponics crammed into every nook and cranny are nonetheless very impressive. Impressive enough for you to unhook a small unit tucked in a closet and move it to a nearby rooftop. If Jorge is going to be too busy dealing with intra-gang squabbles you’re almost doing him a favor by taking it off his hands.

It’s a least an hour before your familiars inform you that Randy’s group is about to move. You’ve had a chance to look around pretty completely and there’s almost no one around—four guys, two of which are sleeping and the other two who are probably supposed to be keeping watch but are watching TV. 

Spot runs ahead and meets you while Huginn shadows the cars. Randy and his men are in a caravan seven or eight cars and trucks. They pull in behind a nearby building and Randy directs a couple of the men to pull out one of the weird things piled in the back of one of the trucks. 

Your assumption that it’s some kind of RC car is quickly dashed when one of the guys pokes at a couple of buttons and the little car pops and expands into a humanoid…ish figure about four feet high. Randy straps on some kind of gauntlets and monocle and gestures at the front door of the grow house. 

With a rumble that sounds like a diesel engine the midget robot takes off in a cloud of black smoke. One arm—which ends in a miniature wrecking ball—starts to spin and is unleashed as it gets within range, cracking the door near the lock enough that the mechanical gangster bursts through a moment later. 

Waving the rest of his men forward, Randy makes stabbing gestures with his right hand. His vicious laugh is audible from the rooftop you’re watching from. 

Just a couple of minutes later Randy pulls the monocle aside and heads into the building. You shift into something smaller and follow along, finding that the four men on-site have all been dragged into a single room and beaten pretty severely. The grow op has been wrecked and the rest of the space ransacked.

Randy points to a handful of men. “Boots, take these guys and torch the place. Drag them fucks outside, I guess. Rest ‘a ya get Squealer’s bitch-bot back in the truck and let’s hit the next joint.”

You wait until all of the vehicles have left except ‘Boots’ and his men before sweeping in and immobilizing everyone and draining them into unconsciousness. After moving them all outside you take one of the phone and put in a call to 911. 

It probably says a lot about Brockton Bay that the dispatcher is fairly blasé about your claim that you’re a new cape. Asking for you to spell ‘Manitou’ was a nice touch as well. They also sounds resigned when you state you’re not hanging around.

You end up trailing behind Randy as he hits another distribution house and then on to a third before he realizes that the two groups he left to set fires haven’t showed up. It’s unfortunate that you can’t pick off more of his part of the gang, but all told the Brockton police have more than twenty Merchants off the streets and Randy’s still pissed enough that he’ll continue to go after Jorge after he licks his wounds a bit. Still, it’s a good night’s work.

During breakfast on Monday morning you count your haul from the night before and find yourself with a little over $15k in mixed bills. Without a better place to put it, you stash it under your bed and laugh to yourself about hiding all of your cash under your mattress. 

You and Jordyn bracket Sabah in history again, but mainly because the small girl is in a bubbly, huggy mood, which is in stark contrast to your TA Allen, who slumps his way in and sleepwalks his way through class. 

Afterward, Sabah hooks her arm through yours and the three of you head to the library. The girls had lost Saturday due to feeling bad and you’re the resident expert on history, so you assist in getting them caught up, the you all meet Raven for lunch. 

You see Jordyn looking down at her salad with a frown and wiggle your fork in her field of view. “Bad?”

The normally-bubbly blonde lifts a shoulder. “Just tired of the food.” She wiggles her fingers, “It’s not like _bad_ , but it’s kinda bland.”

“I’d offer to cook, but I only know how to do burgers, like forty variations of the same casserole, a chicken pilaf thing, and spaghetti.”

Jordyn groans, “Chepi, I would start a riot for decent spaghetti. With meat sauce, right?”

You nod, “It’s like mostly meat, yeah.”

“I’ll teach you how to make the best garlic bread in the world if you cook.”

“I kinda wanted to see you start a riot,” you say with a smile, “Haven’t seen one of those since high school, so I’m kinda missing them.”

Sabah actually jumps in, touching your arm. “You had _riots_ at your school?” 

Over Raven’s muffled chuckles you try to explain. “So even though there’s like five public high schools in Brockton, the only ones you hear about are Arcadia—” you point at Raven, who waves, “—which is the shining star of the public school system, and Winslow,” you hook a thumb at yourself, “where learning goes to die.” Shaking your head at Sabah’s horrified face you continue quickly. “There weren’t actual _riot_ riots or anything, but someone got into a fight maybe once a week or so.”

Both Sabah and Jordyn are staring at you incredulously. You suddenly remember something and turn to Raven, “Did Arcadia get the Wards showing up and doing their little meet-and-greet thing?”

The silver-hair girl swallows her mouthful while nodding. “Yeah, it was actually a bit boring. We had the New Wave kids going there after all, so capes weren’t a new thing.”

“Right, so my junior year we all piled into the auditorium and they started their little speeches about being good and not doing drugs or whatever and someone started booing them. Somehow that turned into chanting ‘Wards are narcs’ and throwing paper…” you trail off and shake your head, chuckling, “Last year they came back with backup—Armsmaster and Miss Militia were there too. MM was holding what looked a hell of a lot like a grenade launcher and Beardman had the blade on his spear free. It was wild.”

At this point even Raven is gawping at you. The three girls look at each other and manage some kind of wordless conversation that ends with Jordyn very obviously changing the topic. “ _Any_ way, let’s talk pasta, Cheps.”

“How about tomorrow, ‘cause I don’t have any noodles on hand?”

“Deal!” Raven immediately starts talking about something else without letting you drop another bomb about your schooling, so you just let them go along with it.

After lunch is Raven’s class with Laserdream, so you pretend to head home and hang around the campus instead. While you’re killing time you shift and sneak into Karl’s room and find the place (and one of the other rooms down the hall, presumably where the other two Empire goons lived), completely stripped of _everything_ , including furniture. 

That doesn’t take long so instead you hang out near the classroom and browse the news sites. The Empire arrests are completely out of the news cycle, mainly because they barely appeared in the first place. There was a mention of a ‘possible dog fighting ring located in the industrial section’ one day, but no details of numbers of people arrested or anything like that. 

The Merchant stuff from last night _does_ get mentioned, but just as generic ‘gang violence in the Docks’. You get a namedrop for advising the police of the issue, but they don’t go into any more detail than that. 

Raven sends you a quick text to let you know they’re on the way out the front door and you, in turn, nudge Huginn. Yes, you’d agreed that you’d shapeshift and drop the note and drive off, but this way Raven’s surprise will be genuine!

The goth girl is talking to Laserdream as they exit but stops when she sees you walking up. “Raven, hey. I wanted to ask…”

“Chepi? What’re you—holy shit!”

With a squawk of surprise the silver-haired girl points at Huginn as the familiar back-wings to a landing and drops the letter held in his beak. You never really considered it, but Huginn is _much_ larger than even the biggest raven you’ve seen around, and his plumage shimmers with blue highlights in the sun. 

“ _Lazrr dream._ ” He croaks, pointing his beak at the paper and then at the blonde. Spreading his wings to take off again he’s blocked by a red shield. 

That could be a problem.

…and it’s shown not to be a moment later as, with an irritated _kraa_ he pierces the shield with his beak and flies off directly over the rooftop, Laserdream hot on his tailfeathers.

You and Raven are left to stare at each other awkwardly. The girl narrows her eyes at you. “How?” she hisses.

The cape lands a second later and shakes her head. “Lost the bird.” She looks over at Raven then to you. “You know him?”

Pulling the toboggan cap down a bit farther on her head, Raven frowns. “Unfortunately. Chepi, Crystal, Crystal, Chepi.”

You lift a hand and wave. “Uh, hi.” Laserdream spares you a quick wave but concentrates on the note immediately after. Turning back to Raven you continue, “I was hoping to see if I could either borrow your car or get you to help me pick up some equipment I bought. I can’t get it on my bike and they don’t deliver.”

The girl waves her hand at you distractedly as she watches the cape grab a stick from nearby and—with a shield anchored on her other hand to protect herself—carefully prod the paper open to reveal the thumb drive. 

Raven sidles up next to you and slides her arms around yours, digging her nails into the tender flesh of your inner arm. Well, comparatively tender, you feel the pressure but no pain. 

You look over at her and give her a cheerful grin. “So I didn’t expect to get caught up in cape stuff. Maybe I’ll hit you up later?”

Laserdream approaches the two of you, skimming over the letter before looking up. “Raven, do you mind if I borrow your laptop to see what’s on here?” The open cape gives you an awkward smile, “Sorry, but could you talk to her later?”

“Sure, sorry to interrupt.”

That actually draws a laugh from the blonde. “You didn’t interrupt, that bird did.”

You walk off and circle back around once you’re firmly out of sight. As a squirrel you ensconce yourself in a nearby bush as Raven’s laptop boots up. “Crystal, if this thing blows my computer up…”

“I’ll buy you a new one. Seriously. But has your dad mentioned a new cape by the name of ‘Manitou’?”

“Nope.” There’s the sound of typing and a second later Raven continues. “The only hit comes from something this morning, Bagrat reposted a story from the WWLP website. Looks like he captured Merchants or something.”

“Well, that’s something at least. Now here, let me plug it in.”

“…there’s a text document and a couple of video files.”

There’s an oppressive silence for a moment before Laserdream speaks dully. “Open the one called ‘seduction’.”

Even with your enhanced hearing you can’t make out the actual audio, but you’ve listened to it enough over the past couple of days to be able to follow along. Raven gasps during the conversation. “Did you know he was a—“

“ _Fuck!_ ” the cape spits. “Yeah, I knew. I was trying to flirt just enough so he’d leave his phone unlocked or mention when a meeting was happening or something.” There’s a muffled groan before Laserdream continues. “Vicky and Eric are pushing back against our parents just not doing patrolling or anything so I was trying to set something up.”

You head out—you’ll get the rest of the information from Raven later. Instead you head by your apartment to change into your cape outfit and find a name for Spot.

Once you sit and pet Huginn—who seems incredibly smug about breaking Laserdream’s shield—an idea takes root. You’d named your raven mainly to tweak the nose of the Empire, what with their claiming of Norse pagan imagery, so some quick wikipedia-diving finds a dog that’s also appropriately named.

With that settled you and the newly-christened Garmir (or Garm for short) head to the homeless camp while Huginn goes on a tour of Randy’s warehouse and his trail of destruction from last night.

When you arrive and shift back into human form, Slick, Lilah, and Dwayne are once again in their headquarters. You stride in and catch their attention. “So did last night take the heat off of you here?”

“Boss, Lilah said you’d be doing somethin’!” Slick’s bearded face creases up in a grin, “I thought it might be a bad idea, but she talked me around to it.”

You lean over the map and grab a pen. A little cross-checking of addresses lets you mark the three houses that Randy’s men attacked while you fill the three in on what had transpired.

Dwayne is the first to talk, scratching at his neck nervously. “You said there was stuff for growin’ plants?”

“Yeah. Some of it was automatic watering and the plants were in tubs, a couple of the small closets had these water-garden things hooked up in them.”

Shooting Slick a look, Dwayne sinks back into his chair. Slick looks at Lilah, who’s shooting him a ‘told-you-so’ look, then rubs his face with his hands. “Fine, dammit!” He looks up at you and shakes his head, “Nothing about you, Dwayne’s been pushin’ for us to get off this field and take over one of the buildings nearby and see if we can get some crops growing. Jorge’s personal weed stash ain’t important, but free gardening stuff is. Assumin’ the cops ain’t taken it yet.”

A thought to Huginn to verify things has you shaking your head. “There was a cruiser or two parked near each building, but _most_ of the stuff inside seemed to be there when I checked before coming here. Some got knocked over or smashed, but most of its alright.”

“We can work with that.” He turns to Dwayne and flips his hand between the skinny guy and you. When he isn’t forthcoming, Slick continues. “So summa our people ended up trying to plant seeds they had from stuff—the day center’d given out fruit and stuff. S’only been like two-three days and they’re already getting shoots growing up like close to a foot tall.”

You blink behind your mask when he pauses. “And?”

“You’re alright with it?”

“You’re trying to grow food, Slick. You just jumped on the chance to loot hydroponics and sprinklers. It seems like you’re trying to find ways to make your little gang as independent as possible.” You pause at his mumbled ‘not a gang’. “Maybe you aren’t a _gang_ gang, but that’s what everyone’s going to say. You could call it a hippy commune and someone’s still gonna scream ‘gang’.”

Slick looks over at a grinning Lilah and a nervous Dwayne. “I’m not tryin’ to start a gang, man. I just… you got me offa all the shit I was on and I’m tryin’ to pass it on some. Th’ city pays more attention to cape fights and the Rig, I was just hopin’ we’d fly under the radar.”

Lilah speaks up, “And I keep sayin’ it ain’t gonna work like that. Look, Faultline’s people have their club thing and ain’t nobody botherin’ em too much. ’Sides, we’re off away from pretty much everyone other’n the Merchants.”

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.” Slick finally allows, shaking his head. “Before that, Dwayne, take a couple of the guys over and call up your guy with the van. Get the stuff here and we’ll try settin’ it up. I’ll talk to Russ about runnin’ a splice from the power lines over to the warehouse, so set ‘em up there.”

“I’ll go find a lookout or two for down Jorge’s way,” Lilah offers. The two make their way out leaving just you and Slick. 

“Boss—Manitou,” the older man begins, rubbing at his beard. “You ain’t asked anything of us, but you been helping everyone really. If you say we’re a gang, we’re a gang.”

“I’m not looking to get in to the gang leader business, Slick. I’m willing to help where I can but if I start calling the shots how is it any different than any of the other gangs in the Bay? Start a commune or whatever and as long as you’re not doing anything too shady I’ll patrol it like anywhere else in the city.”

That gets you some serious side-eye from the man. “Really?”

You laugh. “Nah. Look, I really don’t want to be the head of whatever this is—I’ve never handled any of this shit, never been homeless, wouldn’t know what you needed. I’m…”

“You made the land, boss. You’re the owner. I’m the GC.”

“Still sounds like you’re trying to stick me with being the leader.”

Slick shakes his head, “Nah, it’s more how I’m fittin’ it together in my mind. I’ll get Lilah and Dwayne to add a coupla people into this mix and we’ll hash out a plan. It’s jus’ that you can veto anything or change stuff up if you come in and say something.”

“And yet again it sounds like work for me, but we’ll run with it for now. What’s your plan in the short term?”

“When Dwayne gets back with the growin’ stuff there’s a small warehouse over there that we can get power to,” Slick says, pointing off to the northeast, “It’s still in decent shape. We’ll set that up and see if things grow as good as on the field here. Next is movin’ people into a building, but all of the ones that were offices or at least had separate rooms have structural issues. I don’t suppose you can fix those…”

“Eh… not sure. I used it near a collapsed metal warehouse and it didn’t fix the roof. The floor and windows and walls, though, seemed to get repaired. Pick out a warehouse I can test and I’ll try it tomorrow night. I don’t want to attempt an office building the first time.” Your personal phone is vibrating against your back where you’d stashed it so you make your excuses and leave, Garm staying behind to keep watch. 

A minute south as the crow flies and you pull the phone out to see a number of texts from Raven, as well as a missed call from just a second ago. You hit redial and start bringing the phone up to your ear.

“I can’t _believe_ you, Chepi! How in the hell did you manage to be in two places at once?”

“I’ll show you at some point. Just thought it’d make your confusion seem more realistic, y’know?”

There’s a growl that comes through loud and clear over the line. “I’ll remember that shit when you need something from me. Like, say, to borrow my car?”

“Ouch,” you deadpan. “Look, I apologize for springing it on you. I still think it was the better choice, but I should have given you at least a warning you’d need to ad-lib.”

That doesn’t seem to placate her entirely, but she relents enough to ask what you needed the car for. You explain the hydroponic equipment and listen to the almost-silence as she mutters unkind things about you. “I’ll meet you there. You’re paying for gas _and_ dinner, ya fuckin’ tool.”

Half-an-hourish later you’ve already flown back to your apartment, changed, and moved all the stuff off of the roof. Raven’s little Corolla barely fits everything and the goth girl glowers at you the entire time you’re loading things in it.

Three cross-streets later the girl looks over at you. “Are you going tell me where I’m supposed to be taking this?”

“Oooh, yeah. My place… turn left at the next light.” Any attempts you make at conversation _other_ than directions die a quick death, so the rest of the drive passes in relative silence. And the smell of the pizzas sitting on your lap. 

When you arrive Raven takes the pizzas from you and leaves you to try and balance the rest of your haul, which you manage. Barely. You’ve given the girl your keys and can tell the moment she sees Huginn perched on your dining room table. “ _You!_ ”

Your armload clatters to the floor as you barely make it inside. Raven has put the pizzas down and is in a staring contest with… raven.

Stifling your laugh you shut the door and walk over to gently place a hand on the girl’s shoulder. You’re afraid if you make her blink she’d bite your hand off. “Raven, this is one of my familiars, Huginn.”

“ _hello. raven._ ”

The gray-haired girl jerks back with a gasp, “So you _can_ talk!”

“ _just little. yes._ ”

You slide your arms around Raven in a chest-to-back hug and squeeze before letting her go. “I improvised and I _could_ have warned you and didn’t. I’m sorry.”

There’s a huff and she reaches out and touches Huginn’s head feathers and he turns into the touch. “I was confused as hell, Cheps. Thought you could clone yourself and didn’t tell me.” She wiggles out of your hold and hands you a pizza. “Pepperoni.”

You place the pizza down and quickly pull out the duffle bag of cash, dropping it dramatically on the table. Rooting inside you pull out a wad of _way_ too much cash for a pizza and gas. “Your payment.”

Raven had frozen halfway through a bite of pizza and has to chew a bunch to clear her mouth. “Where the hell—did you get that from the Merchant thing? That was you, right?”

You laugh and fill her in on what you did last night. According to Raven, your claiming of the cash and materials isn’t _technically_ legal—supposedly there’s a process where you document the take and whichever law enforcement group handles the arrests takes it for evidence and provides you with matching funds—but no one actually goes through the trouble of doing that. 

In exchange, she fills you in on the parts of the conversation she and Laserdream had after you left. You’d left your cape phone as a way to contact her, but Raven doesn’t think you’re likely to hear anything for a day or two. She repeats the part you _did_ overhear about the younger generation of capes conspiring, then adds in that Laserdream said something about talking to them first.

Putting down her slice she looks serious for a moment. “Chepi, please don’t... you’re a good dude, but Crystal’s been... not really a _friend_ —we didn’t really run in the same cliques—but always nice and friend _ly_. Just be chill?”

You lean over and pat her on the head, tamping down the beanie she wears. “I’m the chillest.”

That startles a noise out of the girl that you can’t quite place. It sounded a bit like derision, you thought. Raven pulls her hat off and exposes the dark roots of her hair before putting it back on perched _just so_. “If you run in to Victoria, though, be careful.”

“Glory Girl? I’m not gonna let her get close enough to let her punch me.”

Raven makes a cutting gesture with her free hand, “Naw man, seriously. New Wave says she has a Shaker thing. It’s bullshit—everyone who works at the PRT and has kids at Arcadia gets told to have them watch out for her. It’s a fucking love me/fear me aura, Master effect. When she’s happy it’s all sunshine and rainbows and when she’s mad at you, you just about piss your pants in fear. It sucks.”

You blink and shake your head. “How in the hell is that acceptable? They just let her wander around without warnings?”

“All the stuff I keep saying about ‘Master’ this and ‘Blaster’ that are just shorthand used by them and the Protectorate. Anybody claiming she’s a Master is gonna have to try to explain the details, ‘cause what people assume if they hear that is ‘mind-controlled zombies’ or ‘the shit Heartbreaker does’.”

“How bad _is_ her aura-thing anyhow?”

“Let’s put it this way. She’s queen bee of her grade level and one of her little follower bitches made a comment about me looking like a fucking skank. Don’t think Vicky even heard her say it, she was like talking to her sister or something. I didn’t even _see_ Vicky. I just thought something about how I’d like to smack every single one of those bitches and suddenly I felt her aura turn from pink sparkles and unicorns to fucking _doom_. It’s fucked up.”

“Is that just a thing that always happens? There’s no way...”

Raven shakes her head, “She has some kind of control over it, at least like being able to turn it off completely, but sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn’t. I don’t even know if she realizes it until someone says something and the feeling just, like, cuts off.”

You wince and try to imagine how you’d handle it. Unfortunately you have no clue, because none of your powers seem to lend themselves to mental shielding or whatever. Of course you haven’t had a need to interact with Glory Girl and you probably won’t need to much, so it’s not anything to be too worried over.

After keeping the girl from feeding Huginn the remaining half of her pizza the two of you manage to set the hydroponics trays up in what used to be your old bedroom. A bit more petting of the bird and she heads back to campus and you head out to stock up on both food for four as well as whatever looks useful plant-wise at the local hardware store.

...being that it’s September, that isn’t a huge amount. The few live plants they have don’t seem immediately useful, but you stock up on a number of different seeds that will work.

The next day is blessedly quiet. Still no contact from Laserdream, but also the Merchants appeared to be licking their wounds as neither Randy nor Jorge’s men were visible.

After your own classes are done you grow a small assortment of plants, some herbs, some vegetables, and some that would generally just be considered ornamental. All feel ‘useful’ to you, and the seeds respond well to your coaxing. In fact, dipping your finger into the water that flows through the hydroponic system appears to allow you to enhance the growth of every plant that touches the water. With that neat little hack discovered, you force-grow plants multiple times before moving your harvest to the kitchen.

...it turns out that sitting down and trying to go about the brewing process scientifically makes it more difficult than doing so on-the-fly. You quickly find that you can’t just ponder a potion you’d like to make and have your powers detail the ingredients and process for you. Instead you find yourself starting with a base of—for example—bee balm leaves. With them either in-hand or having your attention you begin to tease out what correspondences the herb has. In the case of bee balm it can have effects on the nervous system, the ears, and heat. 

Probing that further and eyeing the other plants strewn on the counter a few options stand out. Mixed with spearmint and the former ability is altered, creating a mixture that would enhance the reaction time if brewed correctly. You feel that just chopping and brewing a tisane from it would _work_ , but barely; the more you concentrate the clearer your options are. Muddling the two herbs together in a mortar and pestle would be more effacious, as would adding a third ingredient to strengthen the mixture—a couple of options come to mind, but you don’t have any ambergris handy, or any idea of how to get it. Nor do you have benzoin after some searching on the internet to figure out what the substance you’re imagining in your head is. Coconut flesh would be a poor substitute, but would be better than nothing.

Adding to this are more details about how to do more than a simple herbal tea. Letting the herbs dry in the sun before mixing would increase the potency, using an oven to dry them would not. Tap water would work _okay_ , water from a spring would be better. Then there’s creating a decoction instead of a mere infusion, stirring with an oaken implement (in this case, other woods would be better for different potions), the direction of the stir—you find an empty notebook and start scribbling out notes. 

You’d hoped to crank out a couple of test brews but that quickly gets ruled out. Instead you check over what you have available and come up with one you can make that would be easily testable without having to do a bunch of prep-work or being super obvious in its effects.

It ends up cutting pretty close to the time the girls are supposed to come over and you have to hurry to clean everything up before a trio of cute co-eds invade your apartment after their afternoon classes let out. 

Huginn has headed over to the homeless camp while Garm is snoozing on your couch where he was no help at all during the brewing process. The dappled-gray dog is an immediate hit with both Jordyn and Raven (the latter of whom shoots you a look like she expects this is Huginn shapeshifted), but Sabah’s family apparently never had dogs so she takes a while to warm up to him. Garm is a quick study at puppy-dog eyes, though, and manages to charm the short girl into scratching his ears as he rests his head on her leg without too much of a fuss.

Jordyn joins you in the kitchen area to make her garlic bread and the four of you make conversation for a while. It’s Raven who asks how you manage to have a fairly big apartment on your own as a freshman. You’re in the middle of rinsing mushrooms when you absently explain how your mother bugged out back in June and your father passed away a little over a year ago, leaving you with this place.

With a rush of indrawn breath a small missile collides with your back and grabs you in a hug. Putting down the knife you turn and gather the girl up. “Sabah?”

“Oh, _Chepi_. I... my father...” it’s hard to make out through the sniffles. “He passed back in April.”

Raven takes over your culinary duties while you comfort the Arab girl. Apparently this was something that hadn’t come up with her roommate, because Jordyn looks like this is the first time she’s heard of it as well. You rub Sabah’s back and murmur nonsense words into her scarf-covered hair. 

In time the girl relaxes a bit and the two of you talk about your fathers. It’s odd hearing Sabah talk about her father—on one had he brought them out of Iraq to the US, but he also appeared to have a some very unique ideas on how women should behave. You’re somewhat surprised that the girl was allowed to attend college, in truth.

You end up bringing Sabah back to the kitchen and sitting her next to you as your helper as you cook. Keeping herself busy pretty quickly distracts from the melancholy of a family member’s death and whenever she begins to pause you bump her hip and wiggle your eyebrows at her to get a blush from the girl.

Dinner is a hit, although you once again have to keep Raven from slipping food to your familiars. It’s like she thinks you don’t feed them or something. You manage to show Raven the potion with a quick explanation of the effects and ask if she’s willing to test it. It _does_ take a bit of convincing that you’re completely serious when you ask her to film it, but finally you get a smirk from the girl and she stuffs the small bottle—a repurposed mini-bottle of alcohol—into a pocket.

Once they’ve left Garm hops up on the couch next to you and leans his head on your shoulder.

_> You sure they not mates?<_

“We don’t do mates the same way you think. I can’t just breed them when they’re in season, there’s a lot of complications involved. Humans are like that.”

 _> Huginn right, you weird. Small one and tall one _very _interested. <_

You groan. You’d been doing your best to ignore all the scent cues ever since you hung out with the girls this weekend. _< I know. I told you it’s a human thing.>_

Changing into your costume and heading over to talk with Slick allows you to put thoughts of a trio of pregnant bellies out of your head, thankfully. The headman of the homeless camp shows you the warehouse where all of Jorge’s growing equipment has been repurposed. The building is literally just across a one-way street from the meadow you created, and it appears that there is indeed bleed-over beyond the immediate bounds of the dirt. Dwayne and his crew have started a couple of different types of vegetable and no matter the type, the plants closest to the encampment have already visibly grown, while the others haven’t. 

You manage to get Dwayne’s attention and hand the thin man a few packets of seeds. “Try growing a couple of these in here and if you can manage to get some pots or a planter, do the others in the field somewhere. I’ll check on them again in a day or two.”

“S-sure boss,” the perpetually nervous-seeming man says. 

You pat him on the shoulder and he tenses for a second before relaxing. “Thanks Dwayne.”

Slick takes you over to the other warehouse nearby, which is a narrower, stone building rather than a longer, lower one. Walking inside there are obvious office spaces that rise up along the inside walls, although one of the staircases is just a pile of rubble and steel and all the inside of the place is blackened like a fire had gutted it at some point.

You tilt your mask towards the bearded guy and ignore the buzz of your cape phone in your pocket. “So if this suddenly turns into a gigantic tree or something it’s not going to cause an issue?”

Exhaling through his beard, Slick shakes his head. “Hope not. It’d be _real_ obvious and that’s gonna draw every flyin’ cape in the city if you do, then everybody else after it after they spread the news.”

“Well, let’s see.” You don’t bother with the theatrics of using a staff, merely tapping your foot against the cracked concrete and trying to hold the idea of a repaired building in your mind.

Slick yelps as the magic sweeps out in concentric circles from you and the floor shifts and writhes. Cracks and holes disappear and glass reforms. Things look slightly different, with the straight lines and right angles of modern construction ever-so-slightly off and gaps in brick mortar suddenly sprouting ivy that takes over patches of the walls near it.

You’d hoped that the staircase would reform from the pile of rubble and rebar, although you doubted it’d turn into the same bare concrete switchback stairs that were there. The eruption of a trunk and vines from the pile is worrying at first until the gray-green plants begin to gently curve around the space and the stone puddles and reforms into a series of wide, shallow risers. 

The transformation takes just a minute or two but when it’s complete the building looks whole but somewhat more… _organic_ than it did previously. You head to the staircase to test it—a fall won’t hurt you, after all. Your boots sound odd as you walk and you kneel down to get a better look at the floor. 

What you thought was just resurfaced concrete appears to have something resembling a root system woven throughout it. The differing textures soften the sound that walking on hard cement often does and seems to provide decent grip as well.

The staircase is similarly affected, with the steps wide enough for easy stepping and formed of a wood and stone mixture, although heavier on the wood. The steps themselves are very thick and support you even as you jump up and down with no sway. Touching the latticework of vines that cover both the central tree-trunk and the walls you _do_ grow a pair of handrails as you continue up to the second floor.

Walking the hall you find that doors have been replaced by huge leaves or interwoven curtains of vines that grow from the top of the doorframes. Entering one of the rooms shows any furniture that may have existed is gone, the floor replaced by a mat of soft green moss and patches of ivy-like plants decorating the walls. 

Looking out the window shows people pointing at the building, so you hurry back down to ground level and grab Slick, who’s still turning around in circles and muttering to himself.

You’d thought that the outside would be odd looking based on the attention, and in some ways it is. Up close you can see where wood has woven itself into the makeup of the stone, replacing missing mortar with stems and runners. In a few places there are sprays of color from flowers breaking up the otherwise-gray stone. 

The part that seems to be garnering the _most_ attention, though, is actually off on the side of the building. A wooden trunk is visible rising from the ground and patching a hole that looks like it had been created by a vehicle slamming into the wall at some point. Out from the trunk is a sturdy, thick branch that appears to be hollow judging by the end. Under it is another trunk, this one with a concave depression that is collecting water that drips from the branch above. Cupping your hands you let some collect and sip at it.

“It’s safe.” It’s beyond safe, just drinking it gives you the same feeling that walking in one of your liminal spaces carries.

Slick, who had followed you, does the same before letting out a choked noise. “It’s not a lot, but fresh water like this is…” He turns and beckons someone over. “Round up a coupla others and find some clean buckets.”

Placing a hand on the trunk you sink into a semi-meditative state and try to figure out where this is coming from. It ends up being more supposition and gut feeling than exact information, but from what you can sense the various trees that have merged with he stone of the building have driven their root systems down into the ground and found groundwater. This close to the bay it’s hardly surprising that the groundwater is saline, but the plants don’t seem to care much. They’re taking it in and using it, but some is being filtered and dispensed here as well.

As you let your senses tune back in it’s obvious that the changes you’ve wrought have extended the liminal space out as well. Your heightened sensitivity allows you to feel it slowly gaining in power. It echoes a feeling in your chest of _rightness_ , like the building and field you’ve claimed and converted are strictly better than the lifeless shells of the surrounding buildings.

While you were concentrating the others have returned and started collecting from the spring and Slick is talking to a couple of people about verifying the integrity of walls and such. He sees you moving around and sends them off before walking over. “You didn’t seem to hear me, I figured you was busy doin’ somethin’.”

You hum in agreement and give the man an overview of what you discovered. “Since everything is new and just starting to work it’s very possible that the flow of water will increase.”

Slick touches the building like he’s trying to draw information from it just like you did. “Is there gonna be a problem if we hook power up ‘n get the boiler goin’ for hot water?”

Laying your hand back you can’t quite pick up where you left off, but it’s faster. “Shouldn’t be. I don’t think there was wiring in the exterior walls anyhow, seeing that they were stone.”

“Once the guys come back with an okay on the floors ‘n such we’ll give it a try. It’ll take a couple of hours at least.”

“If you can spare the people to verify any new spots for Jorge or Randy I’m getting tired of them hanging over my head. Alternately if they find Skidmark and I take him and Squealer on I could just straight stake a claim for the Docks in general. Might be more trouble than its worth, but...” you trail off and shrug. The idea of any of the Merchants stepping foot onto _your_ grass makes your hackles rise.

Slick swallows audibly. “Boss, I can’t say this enough, but thank you for everythin’ you’re doin’ here. I’ll get Lilah on huntin’ ‘em down, she’s the best at that.”

Putting your hand on the older man’s shoulder for a moment you start to move away. “I’ll head out, you have enough on your plate checking this place out.” Shifting once you're out of sight you do a bit more checking yourself, as well as answering your phones.

The roof of the building is covered in huge leaves on stems taller than a man. Underneath all of the machinery that you’d expect on a rooftop is there—AC units and the like—but the feeling you get is that the mixture of plants that have woven their way through the building are using them almost like solar panels. It serves to hide you pretty well as you dig out both of your phones and look through the messages.

Your cape phone is—as expected—Laserdream. She thanks you for the information about Mike but explains that she was trying to use him in turn. Instead of going into more detail or anything, though, she’s asking for a face-to-face meeting on a rooftop on campus to speak more. You suppose it makes sense as a neutral-ish location, seeing as she’s known as going there and you delivered the information to her there the other day. The New Wave cape leaves exactly what she wants to talk about a bit open-ended when she says ‘I’d like to speak with you tomorrow evening about patrolling and perhaps an exchange of information.’ You ponder that and **{1AB}**

The other texts on your personal phone are _much_ more immediately interesting. Raven sent a bunch of texts that just seem like keysmash reactions of excitement at first but trail off into a bunch of ‘Chepi!’ and ‘oh, Chepi you fucker’ before the last one tells you to text her if you’re available to video chat. 

So you cross your fingers and do.

A minute later and you have an extreme close-up shot of the girl’s face. There’s a hard-to-decipher mix of emotions that seems to be _largely_ positive, but with a thick layer of irritation. “So dude,” she starts, then pauses at the mask. “Are you in the middle of something?”

Sliding the mask off you shake your head. “Just got done uh... ‘doing things’ and forgot to take it off. What was with the mix of random letters you kept sending me?”

“Well, you said this potion of yours would make my hair turn like _actual_ silver-gray instead of a dye job, right?”

You’re immediately worried, but you can see she still has hair even with her zoomed in as she is. “Yes...”

“And you said it’d make my hair grow a bit faster.”

Now you’re worried again. “ _Yes?_ ”

Raven jerks the phone out to arm-length and it takes you a couple of seconds to figure out what the camera is showing you. “Oh. _Ooooh._ ”

Somewhere in the brewing process you’d apparently made a small mistake. The girl in the chat _does_ indeed have silvery-gray hair without any differently-colored roots in sight. Even her eyebrows look to have changed.

The _problem_ appears to be an amount of hair that would put Lady Godiva to shame. She’s absolutely covered in it. “So, uh, how long did it get?”

Shaking her head and laughing a bit the girl pulls at some of the mass. “It’s piled up on the floor next to me. I’m gonna need to cut it in small chunks and like stuff it in one of the trash cans or something. But here’s the thing, dude. I was gonna just send you a picture of me wearing my new hair and everything else when I discovered _this_.”

Once again the camera slews wildly before focusing on an extended leg. It’s hard to see in the light, but against the pale, creamy skin you can just see glittering curls of silver hair.

You’re not sure exactly what noise you make, but when she focuses the phone back on her face there’s a stern look on it. “Your fucking witch brew changed _every goddamn hair_ on my body to silver _and made it grow_.” She reads something in the widening of your eyes and points a finger at you. “Don’t you dare say it.”

Choking down your comment you instead ask if she needs assistance. 

“No, you don't get to see me naked that easily.” Raven snickers a bit, “It’s actually cool and all, but _this_ ,” she hefts some hair, giving you a tantalizing glimpse of her chest, “is hella more than ‘faster’, dude.”

“Sorry, Raven. Not to change the subject or anything, but Laserdream texted me about a meeting tomorrow.”

Raven hums as she cards her hand through her hair. “Crystal’s probably just wanting to talk, but I’d be suspicious of Glory Girl butting in. Eric’s probably cool if he shows up, though. I’d totally be your backup if I could, but not if there was a potion involved.”

You grunt at the jab to your abilities. You could mention the kindling thing, but is it a good time to introduce complications like that? ****

Raven hums as she cards her hand through her hair. “Crystal’s probably just wanting to talk, but I’d be suspicious of Glory Girl butting in. Eric’s probably cool if he shows up, though. I’d totally be your backup if I could, but not if there was a potion involved.”

You grunt at the jab to your abilities. You could mention the kindling thing, but is it a good time to introduce complications like that? 

Probably not. But it likely wouldn’t hurt to _offer._

Raven’s gone quiet and is shooting you a confused look through the video call. “Are you about to bust out more crazy bullshit?”

You _laugh_ , but there’s no humor behind it. “Pretty much, yeah. So I can… bestow a bit of one aspect of my powers on someone. Not that I’ve done it, but I know _how_.”

“You— _one_ …” the girl trails off by putting her hands in her face and groaning. From where the phone’s fallen amongst her hair you can see her move the heels of her hands enough to uncover her mouth. “Can you give me an abbreviated version that won’t give me a headache?”

It takes you a bit to formulate it in your mind first. “Leaving out context and a lot of detail, I can gift someone the ability to either conjure animals, shapeshift, or do a couple of little tricks like the hedges. It’s not as powerful as my version, and I lose a bit of my powers as a result.”

“Forever? Why would you do that?”

“No, it’s not permanent, and I can take the power back. Not like—” you snap your fingers, “ _that_ , but even if you run off to New York or whatever it’s not a permanent loss for me.”

Raven starts to talk, opening and closing her mouth a couple of times. A pair of scissors comes into view and she begins to violently trim her hair back. “Can we discuss it more before it happens? Does it have to happen _right now_?”

You throw your free hand up. “There’s like a little ritual that takes maybe twenty or thirty minutes. Look, I know I offered, but I’m not gonna be insulted if you say no, y’know?”

The cutting stops and the gray-haired Rapunzel knockoff picks the phone up and points her finger at you. “Dude, what you’re offering is _crazy_. Crazy _amazing_ , and I feel like I should just say yes, but I’ve heard so many weird cape stories that I’m worried. Can we talk about it?”

“Now?”

Raven huffs. “You gotta give me enough time to trim all this fucking hair, but yeah.”

“We’ll talk at the trees from Sunday. I’ll send Huginn to your dorm and he’ll guide you to where I’ll be.”

You hear snipping again and Raven mutters to herself about how her hair is going to look ‘totally fuckin’ butchered’. “I’ll be quick Chepi. Bye.”

Your familiars are already ahead of you, Huginn winging off towards the girl’s dorm. Garm has stationed himself near Slick. You shift and take flight yourself, heading to your apartment long enough to gather the few things that you might need if the girl takes you up on your offer. Rather than take your motorcycle, though, you follow your raven’s flightpath to campus, but a bit further in, away from the dorms.

You’ve barely landed before Raven and raven show up, the girl looking around confused. “We’re not taking your bike?” She’s not wearing her beanie for once, her new hair twisted up into a bun that’s almost the size of her head.

“Nah, too loud.” You look at the trashbag in her hand. “Please tell me that’s not hair.” When she just looks at you and raises her eyebrows you sigh. “That was a mistake, obviously.”

Raven giggles, “Dude, the color is awesome and I wanted it longer, but like ‘down-to-my-butt’ long, not ‘twice my size’ long.” Her nose wrinkles as she continues. “The silver pit and leg hair I can deal with for now, but I grew out a bush that’d make a 70’s grandma jealous.”

The noise that comes out of you is some weird groan-laugh-wheeze combo. The girl’s teeth shine white in the moonlight. “It’s okay to laugh, I wouldn’t’ve said it if I was embarrassed.” She pauses and looks around, “But seriously, it’d take forever to walk there.”

Amused, you shift into a pony-sized wolf and chuff at her. Huginn alights and snatches the bag before taking off with a quick thought to you that he’d take care of the hair and that lets Raven approach and touch your fur. “Really?”

You manage a credible ‘yes’ even with canine vocal cords and after some audible swallowing she hoists herself up. While a wolf isn’t exactly designed to be ridden, your increased size gives her more of a stable surface. Her hands dig in and grip your ruff and she ends up more or less laying down along your back. “Oooookay.”

Starting slow in order to ensure she didn’t fall, you soon transition into a ground-eating lope that has you nosing your way through the trees of the copse within five minutes or so. The ability to go off-road allowed shortcuts that you just couldn’t do on your bike.

With a shift you’re standing upright and Raven has her arms clasped around your neck. She lets go and drops just a bit, her hands going immediately to the hair that escaped the bun and hanging to her thighs. She turns away and clears her throat a bit as you get a fire going. Huginn arrives during the process and perches on a nearby branch.

Once you’re both sitting the conversation seems impossible to start but you power ahead anyhow. “So about granting powers…”

Raven blows out a breath. “So the first thing that comes to mind when you say that is Teacher, who’s in the Birdcage for a reason.”

You jump in, leaning forward, “Right, I saw a show on him. He doesn’t like, give up part of his power though, and it dumbs you down or something?”

“Yeah, but when people say ‘give powers’ that’s the main one everyone thinks of. Around Brockton we might think about Othala, but her stuff just lasts for like a minute or two.” She waves her hand, “Anyhow, I believe you’re not just trying to Master me, and that whatever this does isn’t going to fuck me up like, mentally or whatever. 

“I’m also not thinking that you talking to Crystal tomorrow is going to end in a fight or anything. I _still_ believe that Victoria will butt her dumbass in, but not throwing punches.” She looks down at her hands, “Well, her stupid aura might try and goad _you_ into starting something, but Crystal should be able to shut that down. It’s just that Glory Girl likes to hear herself talk and she’ll give you the third degree about anything and everything she doesn’t like.” Raven shakes her head and runs fingers through the sides of her hair. “I’m getting all rambly, sorry. If you power me up with some of those ‘little tricks’ or whatever, what’s going to happen if I get pulled into a thing like the dogfight place? Is one of the abilities like a shield or armor or anything?”

“No…”

Raven looks solemn and serious as she matches your gaze. “I’m wiling to help, Chepi. If I do it as a civilian I get a little bit of protection, ‘cause even the crazier capes in the Bay generally go for other capes first, not civvies. But as soon as I have any powers at all I’m a target.” She snorts, “I took kung-fu for years, but that ain’t gonna cut it against anyone but a Thinker. Or maybe Othala, I could probably kick her ass.” 

Shaking her head, the girl continues. “I know it’s kinda fucked up to try and make demands when you’re offering, but _if I could choose_ I’d prefer to be able to summon things so I could have a bodyguard or two.” Giving you a weak smile she points up at Huginn, “I mean, my _real_ personal choice would be shapeshifting, because I’ve always wanted to fly, but I don’t know if that would be as… safe. As safe as helping you in fights would be, at least.”

Honestly, you hadn’t planned on exactly what to give her. A few vague notions of granting her some of the spells you didn’t use like _faerie fire_ and _thunder step_ , then maybe _earthen grasp_ for protection. On reflection, someone who doesn’t have summoned creatures and the ability to shapeshift to escape (and also iron-hard skin), that could be a problem.

The other point that jumps out at you is that you never really broke down for her exactly what your shapeshifting entailed other than the obvious turning into animals and being strong. She doesn’t know you can drain people with a strike, and—most importantly—she _doesn’t know_ you’re as least as armored as a medieval knight in plate armor just walking around in a t-shirt. 

You stand and move over to her side of the fire and sit her in your lap. She’s trembling, though from cold or worry you’re not sure. “In hindsight it’s kinda out of nowhere and you’re right, I don’t really think Laserdream wants to throw down. You just offered and I had been considering offering myself…”

“Oh, Cheps, don’t think I don’t think it’d be the coolest shit ever, I totally do. But even though my Dad never goes out on patrol or anything like that, I’ve heard plenty of times about how some new cape captured some gang members or defeated this or that villain, then a week or a month he’s all somber because they’re seriously hurt or dead.” She turns sideways and leans her head against your shoulder. “I want to have your back and make sure you’re not a statistic. I just don’t wanna be one _myself_ either.”

Swallowing thickly, you run your hand through Raven’s hair. It’s incredibly soft and you stroke it for a moment while you think. “What were you gonna offer if I hadn’t said anything?”

“I have some wireless earbuds so you could stay on the phone with me, and I have a pretty decent camera. No super telephoto lens, but an alright one. Can’t really do video but I could hide on another roof and take pictures.” You can feel her shrug against your chest. “But if you get in an actual fight with Hookwolf or even just take out another Merchant grow or whatever I’m not gonna be of much use with a camera.”

The girl’s right, she wouldn’t be of much use—hell in most of those cases she’d be a liability. Guns weren’t _common_ —at least in the sense that not every single dipshit wearing colors was strapped—but they came up enough that just granting her random spells you don’t use and expecting her to just do it was a bit much. Being completely civilian would be… well, not actually _suicide_ , but definitely not safe.

As she shifts against you again you pull the moss cloak from your shoulders and cover her with it. That is an option—it’s almost like chainmail, but you have no idea how bulletproof it is. And even if you alter it to add in a hood and turn it into a full robe who knows how well it would hold up?

In the end, well…

You’re about to make a girl’s day by giving her a letting her turn into a pony.

“Looks like you’ll be able to turn into your namesake soon, Raven.” You smirk at the confused noise she makes against your chest. “The thing is, you don’t have full details of what I can do. So the strength is part of the shapeshifting, but I also get some good ‘ol Brute defense as well. And if I give it to you, so would you.”

Pulling the satchel over you rummage in it and pull out a knife and offer it to her hilt first. You slide your sleeve up and wiggle your fingers at her. “Give it a test.”

Raven shifts enough to narrow her eyes at you and gives a minute shake of her head. Holding your arm steady she tentatively saws the blade against your forearm and accomplishes little more than shaving some hair off. It does take her a second to work up to stabbing with the point, but after a bit she stands up and is leaning her entire body against the knife as it rests against your palm, to no effect. She stops and pokes at your skin with a finger gently, dimpling it with her grip. 

You can’t say you expected her to whip around and punch you in the nose, but you’re not super surprised either. It accomplishes nothing on your end and leaves Raven cradling her hand with a whimper. You heal her and pull her back down to sit next to you. “So I’ll get a little less armored and strong, and in return you’ll be _more_ armored and strong.” Holding your hands out like scales you jiggle them up and down. “It’s not a one-to-one thing either, so I’m losing like 10% of my strength and you’re getting something like 40% as powerful. Or something. I’m working by gut feelings on this, but I do know it’s one of those ‘greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts’ things.”

“Holy shit, how many tricks are you hiding, dude?”

“One or two more. I’d rather just do the ritual and show you instead if you’re wiling.”

Raven gives you an incredulous look. “Of course. Do we dance naked around the fire first?”

You laugh, “That’s not _required_ , but...”

“Let’s shelve that, then.”

“So, what we _do_ need is for you to drink some of my blood, then I guide your first shapeshift.”

Eyes wide, Raven swallows heavily. “Wow, blood play already? I did— wait, how are you gonna cut yourself?”

“So, while _Iron Hide_ —I have mental names for things, by the way—is kinda ‘always on’, I can suppress it consciously. Like if I needed to get a flu shot or something.” With a flex of power you summon the Horde and have them stand guard over the copse. “My gut tells me that you’re going to be a bit lightheaded when you drink. If you want to pick a form to try first, let’s start with something ground-bound. Once you’re feeling more in-control we can try flying.”

Standing in front of her and offering your wrist seems like it would be incredibly awkward so you end up almost hugging her with your arm wrapped around her shoulders. Part of the process is bringing the pulse that you feel to the fore, but it’s such a part of you that you use every day that it’s the work of moments. This time when a blade meets your skin you feel the burn as the flesh parts and the blood wells up, a faint green glow swirling within the crimson liquid.

To Raven’s credit she doesn’t hesitate, just tilting her head forward and latching on. The first swallow is tentative, but—in a move that reminds you quite a bit of vampire stories—she pulls your arm closer and sucks at the wound with a needy little whimper.

The next pulse has an echo, an off-time beat. It happens again and again as you discover it’s coming from Raven. Or more specifically, the essence she’s taking from your blood offering. Her own rhythm and attempt to match the pulse you feel so naturally is instead out of sync. Reaching out through the bond you now have you... it’s not _subjugation_ , but instead more like taking the reins of her fledgling ability and syncing it to the primal heartbeat. 

When you finally turn your attention back externally you’ve both sunk to your knees. The wound in your wrist has stopped bleeding and you need to use both arms to hold the girl as she writhes in your embrace, her body shifting and flickering. Feathers and scales alike burst from her skin in random patches as her limbs change length and grow claws and hooves.

You turn her face to yours and stare into her eyes. She’s mostly alert and able to focus on you, only occasionally having trouble tracking. Cupping her neck you _push_ the feeling of shifting outwards, into her body. She blurs and shrinks, fur sprouting from between your fingers. As her front paws meet the grass you join her, your hands falling away.

Unlike your first shift, there appears to be more than a bit of disorientation on Raven’s part. The she-wolf across from you looks as unbalanced as a newborn as she carefully places her feet down. You’re unsure that the animal communication you seem to be capable of will work, but actual speech is beyond you in this form. _Are you doing okay?_

Once again, what you get back isn’t really words, but impressions. _...I think so._

With a chuff you turn from the fire and lead her off into the night. Despite the shaky start Raven picks up four-legged movement at a fast clip after that, the two of you shifting to canine and then ursine forms. Before trying a bird form you get her to shift back to human, which she accomplishes pretty decently. You’re a bit suspicious that she found a way to morph her face wider, though, because that’s a hell of a smile.

“So on the bear did you try to get as big as possible?”

Raven’s hopping back and forth on her feet like a toddler on a sugar rush. “Yep! This is so fucking awesome, Chepi...”

You pat her head, then shift to scratching behind her ears when she changes into a dog. “Looks like you’re maybe two-thirds or three-quarters my size. We’ll need to check the strength and armor as well, but let’s try flying.” The fur beneath your hand disappears as she turns into her namesake and flaps her wings without managing to accomplish much. You pick her up and let her perch on your shoulder. “Hold your horses. Let’s get you out of the tree cover or we’ll learn how armored you are when you headbutt a tree.”

Flying takes a bit more work to get down, but unlike you, her landings are perfect from the get-go. The two of you circle campus and do touch-and-gos of various buildings and trees until you’re satisfied that she can handle herself.

Once you’ve returned to the copse you pick up the knife and try to cut yourself again. Raven shifts back and watches intently. Your (admittedly somewhat crude) test shows that you have _most_ of the same durability that you had, with you needing to apply quite a bit of force to cause a cut to appear. Testing Raven the same way shows that her hide and strength boosts are perhaps half as strong as yours. 

Approaching midnight, the two of you (accompanied by Huginn) fly back to the dorm and shift back on the roof. Raven’s still absolutely wired, but has settled down just enough so that she’s not like, vibrating in place. Barely. “So, a couple of things…” You pull a wad of cash and a small scribbled note out of your bag. “Buy a new phone and make it your cape phone. The number is _my_ cape phone, so put it in yours and then hit me up. Second, work on a name and look and stuff. You can get away without one for a while—hell, I didn’t decide on my cape name for close to a week—but it’s gonna be weird trying to mention you without a name.” You nudge the girl with your elbow, “Bet you’re reconsidering calling yourself ‘Raven’ as a nickname, huh?”

“Shaddup, smartass.” Her smile doesn’t even waver as she stuffs the cash in her pocket.

“Finally, try to get the phone stuff done early enough so that we can finalize plans for my meeting with Laserdream in the evening. If it doesn’t take long then maybe I’ll introduce you to Slick and his crew or we’ll go hunting Randy or Jorge’s group…”

 _That_ gets her attention, at least enough for the confusion to show. “I have _no_ clue what you’re talking about but I’m guessing it can wait until tomorrow?”

Nodding, you hand her the wooden mask you’d made. “ _Go to sleep_.”

With a only slightly mocking salute, Raven heads to the access door and finds it locked. She half-turns to you before stopping and shifting into a snake. It takes her a minute or two to find an appropriately-sized hole, but once she slithers out of sight you head back to your own apartment.

You’d half-expected a visit back to your inner world for an occasion as momentous as both expanding the liminal space _and_ kindling someone, but instead you sleep like a log and wake up brimming with energy after only a couple hours in bed. 

Checking in with Garm, he lets you know that Lilah is awake so you fly over to the camp to pick up more plums—you want to try something—and a conversation. You notice a few lights in the restored building and a series of pipes leading from the spring out to a larger trough as you head to their headquarters.

The older woman is half-asleep when you walk in. She might’ve been full asleep if Garm hadn’t just nudged her a moment ago. You sit back into the seat you’d grown the other day and summon a couple of animals to go pick fruit.

After taking a swig from a mug that looks like it’s filled with motor oil and smells like concentrated essence of burnt coffee she speaks. “Don’t tell me you’ve been up all night and still seem fine. Might get jealous.”

“Not hardly, I woke up not too long ago. Why’re _you_ still awake?”

Lilah makes a swirly gesture above her head pointing outward. “Merchant stuff. Either Slick or I are up in case something bad happens.” She rubs her eyes, “Dwayne’s turned out to mostly handle the other workers, so we’re lookin’ for more people so we can stay fresh.”

You trail your finger along the map. “I was going to just leave a note, but since you’re here we can talk about it. I wanted to push back on the Merchants more; either of the two morons are fine, assuming Skidmark hasn’t shown his face around and the group from the Boardwalk haven’t returned.”

“Ain’t heard shit from Rachelle—but I did get someone to go down and find out it’s still her. ‘less Skidmark’s riding her ass she won’t do shit other'n selling anymore, we can pretty much ignore her.” She gets a toothy smile on her face, “The big news is Skids. Him, Squealer, and Mush hit an ABB joint yesterday afternoon down south. The crazy motherfucker and his crazy bitch was in some kinda Tinker thing she made from one of the city’s vacuum trucks. They fuckin’ hoovered up all the white in the building and got away ‘fore Oni Lee could do anything.” She points out an area fairly close to the south shore area. “‘Round here. Lung’s pissed and on fire but they’ve gone to ground and prolly won’t stick their heads out for a couple-three days or so.”

You let out a whistle. “I’d call it stupid if it failed, but damn.” Leaning back a bit you roll your head back and forth, “So that leaves the two idiots. I was hoping you could cast your net out and get more locations for me to hit until one of the other... I don’t know, gets arrested, deposed, killed, runs away...”

“Arrested, most likely,” the woman offers. “Don’t get me wrong, Skidmark’s killed people, Lung totally does, ‘n Kaiser prolly has a time or two, but if you kill people _all_ the time ain’t nobody gonna follow you anymore. S’always possible that he’d get shot up with some weird shit and pointed somewhere to go crazy and maybe die during a trip, but Skids wouldn’t just shoot either of ‘em.”

Turning back to the map, Lilah covers parts of it with her hands. “So the entire city’s divided up ‘n every bit of it’s someone’s territory. It’s jes that nobody cares about this part of the Docks, an no-one goes trying to sell down in the southwest where it’s nothin’ but empty warehouses. Up ‘round here I’m not sure exactly what parts are Randy’s and what are Jorge’s, but we’re _probably_ part of Randy’s turf. He’s been around longer. Jorge’s likely takin’ the chance to move north doin’ what Skidmark told them to, then use the opportunity to push Randy back west.”

The summons return and you consider everything Lilah’s said as you gather the plums. “If Jorge is the active one, I’d rather concentrate on him.” At the former Merchant’s questioning noise you continue. “If this area was Randy’s, he didn’t seem to care much about it. If Jorge comes in and takes over, the new guy’s gonna send some people to look around once or twice at least. With Randy, if Jorge gets taken out he sweeps down south to take over there and spreads himself too thin.”

“Huh, yeah.” Tilting her head she considers the map a bit more. “Could work, seems decent enough at least. I’ll ask a coupla people to go down that way and look around.”

You check the time and stand. “Great. Let Slick know I should be back late in the evening; I’d like to try another building if he’s convinced the current one isn’t going to collapse.”

“He’ll have one picked out, darlin’. Hell, he’s sleepin’ in the new one now.”

“Really?”

Lilah pushes gray-streaked hair out of her face. “Yeah. Actually a coupla people are sleepin’ in it, but Slick’s the kinda guy who wouldn’t tell you to do something if he didn’t do it first.”

With a nod you head back to your apartment and do some experimentation. Piggybacking off of the plums’ healing that worked so well for you the first time so you put work into a process that will stabilize the fruits’ powers without spoilage issues. 

…so you diced them up into a container and poured a bunch of vodka over them, along with allspice berries. That gets placed in the sun and left to infuse as the girls wake up and you start getting texts.

Raven’s are pretty tame—she lets you know in a roundabout way that she’s getting some of the stuff you suggested done, but Jordyn’s go off in a weird direction.

There’s a fair amount in her weird non-capitalized text-speak asking you if you work out. When you say no, she asks if you want to ‘see a bunch of girls in tight clothes’. You finally ask her what the hell she’s getting at and she’s trying to rope you in to a yoga class that she’s attempting to get Sabah to take as well. In the end you agree just because trying to make sense of both the texts and the logic hurt your head.

Classes are classes, then you head back to your apartment after making a couple of stops for an odd variety of things—branches from an apple tree, your normal grocery shopping, and quite a bit of scrap metal.

You’re splitting your attention between a large—well, it’s a stockpot but it _feels_ like a cauldron—and force-growing a bud off of your moss cape when you get a call from Raven. 

“So I’m gonna be flying in to your place… can you leave a window open?”

“I leave the bathroom window open for Huginn. Good luck figuring which one it is though.” You let her start to ask for help before you give a laugh and hang up.

Ten minutes and a bit of clatter from your bathroom later and Raven slips out and frowns at you. “Rude.”

You chuckle, “Navigation from the air’s a _lot_ weirder. Thought a crash-course might be in order.” 

Raven shifts into a housecat shape, locks gazes with you and deliberately knocks one of your books off the coffee table with a paw. When you just burst out laughing she changes back and throws herself onto the couch and pouts for a bit. 

After she gets over her sulk, she joins you and you explain what you’re doing the two of you continue your planning in a bit more detail. While neither of you expect hostilities you decide to sketch out a couple of general plans if things go tits-up. 

While you’re at it you field some additional questions from the girl about the powers you’ve granted her. She seems disappointed when she asks if there’s a trick to shifting just a part of the body temporarily.

“No—or at least not yet. I tried doing horns to go with my mask and can’t get it to work. What were you trying to do?”

Raven’s eyes flick away and the faintest hint of a blush appears. “I was trying for claws and fangs.”

“…I doubt it’s just that.” You look at her while continuing to stir the concoction on the stove.

The girl doesn’t respond for a few moments and believe she’s about to change the subject before she sighs. “I wanted to try turning into a catgirl,” she admits.

You chuckle and weather the glare she sends your way. “For any particular reason, of is it nyan of my business?”

Raven’s deep groan of almost-physical pain is quite enjoyable.

Laserdream had set the meeting time around 7:00, so the two of you arrive around six and perch on a nearby rooftop as owls. No one’s visible on the meeting spot yet, so you spend the time getting Huginn set up in a nearby tree. If required, he’ll control your summons as they dive-bomb the flying cape while you escape.

Around quarter-till two figures descend down out of the sky. Your enhanced night vision lets you track them as they drift around and appear to case the area before one of them moves to conceal themselves—amusingly, on the building you and Raven are already on. It does help to verify that Laserdream’s backup is her brother, Shielder, rather than Glory Girl. 

You and your fellow shifter exchange glances before relocating down to the ground. Changing back to human for a moment to whisper in Raven’s ear, you shift to cat, then monkey to move over to the meeting site and scale the side of the building. At that point you wait for Raven—who has shifted _into_ a raven that resembles Huginn—to fly towards the roof and attract eyes to herself before you shift back to human and hold out a hand for your conspirator to perch on. “Laserdream, a pleasure.”

The New Wave cape, who had been tracking the bird’s flight, half-turns and whips her hands out, fingers curled. She cuts off a surprised yelp and relaxes marginally. “I’d say likewise, but apparently you want to be mysterious.”

Since your face is covered you chuckle a bit as Raven lands and poses regally on your shoulder. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of mystery. At least it keeps the wannabe-Nazis from trying to flirt with me.”

“Ugh.” Hoisting herself to sit on the edge of the brickwork, the blonde half-covers her face. “Yeah, let’s get this out of the way. I’m not— _look_ , I’m not an idiot, okay? This cute guy approaches me and seems all into me the first day of classes, right? I know how things like that work, it’s all about reflected fame or thinking I have some kind of insider information about getting powers or something.” Looking up at you sadly she waves her free hand. “Wouldn’t be the first time, probably not the last time. But I twigged on the Empire thing almost immediately because they’re fucking idiots and always have colors on them.”

You mirror the woman’s casualness and lean against an AC unit. “So you were trying to be a… what’s the term… honeypot?”

Laserdream snickers and raises her eyebrows, “He wasn’t getting anywhere _near_ my honeypot. But yeah. Even though I hadn’t said anything about my schedule, Mike _just happened_ to be nearby to like, all of my classes when I was getting out. It was a bunch of little things like that.” She shakes her head a bit, sending her hair swirling.

Raven taps your ear from her perch on your shoulder, which is the code to tell you that her eyes saw an earpiece in the cape’s ears. Not surprising, and it most likely leads back to Shielder on the other roof. You shrug your free shoulder. “I’m not saying he was going to come up with some magic words to seduce you or anything, but that Erica girl was making it sound a lot more like trying to abduct you or your brother for weird breeding experiments.”

Laserdream looks like she tasted something disgusting. “Yeah. I don’t really know how that would shake out in the end.” Holding her hands out like she’s carrying a box she gestures like she’s putting the discussion aside. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you end up finding all of this out?”

The tale you spin contains large helpings of the truth, but you construct a different path to discovering Mike, Karl, and the rest of his group’s affiliations—admitting to stalking Karl due to his harassment of a friend of yours would not only look weird but also make it much easier to track down your identity.

Instead you talk about your investigation into the Anders Building and the creepy lab space underneath, then tracking some of the dogs into the spaces west of campus. You make up finding some of Hookwolf’s people and following them to campus, where they interacted with Mike, who interacted with Crystal. Due to the parts you’d cut out of the videos, none of this was invalidated by what she’d been able to watch. 

“…so I wasn’t expecting anyone to attack one of the Empire’s fighting rings. I expected to take some video, then either turn it in to the PRT or you or use it to probe further. The next day when I was going through everything I recorded I gave further investigation up as a lost cause for the moment. I don’t really have any further leads and I’m guessing Hookwolf dropped that place. Bitch crashing the party really stopped things cold.”

“Yeah, so I put some feelers out and while the Wards got something of a warning about her _possibly_ being in the state a couple of months ago, there was nothing about her being in Brockton,” Laserdream interjects.

You put your hands up and shake your head, “I had no clue who she was, but even if I’d heard that she was some kind of Master who enhanced dogs… those things didn’t look a damn bit like a dog. Or that they could have ever been a dog.”

That gets a laugh from the open cape. As the conversation continues she admits that with Michael in custody that any _real_ leads she had are likewise gone. “Since we live up towards Captain’s Hill we fly in from the east a lot. So we’ve noticed one or two places that gang members gather, but just… standing around isn’t enough to act on and they’re not stupid enough to try anything while we’re watching.”

“Like I said, I’ve kinda given up on them for the moment. What I’ve mainly been doing is pointing Merchant dealers at each other and letting them get beaten up when they start a turf war.” You give a smile that you’re sure is heard in your voice, “I’ve managed to keep it from really spilling over to civilians, so anything that happens to them is pure schadenfreude.” You pause a moment before nodding at her, “I’d be happy to have assistance when I finally find one of the major stash houses if you’re down. Or for fighting Skidmark if he decides to come after me.”

“Oh, I’m down—at least probably,” the cape amends. “As long as it’s actually gangs—or majorly drug related, but most drugs are gang-controlled anyway. That I can do, but if it’s just an attack on what ends up being just some random druggies or something Lady Photon and Brandish would have my head for ‘bad PR’.” She doesn’t actually make the air quotes, but you sure can hear them. That and the thick layer of irritation.

“…have you ever considered putting on a mask and different costume and just hitting people with a bat instead? Would that work?”

The blonde cards a hand through her hair and looks off in the distance. “Already considered it. Not the bat part specifically, but yeah.” She blows out a puff of air, “ _Technically_ , I could put on a mask and call myself by a different name and the legal system is supposed to treat me like a separate person who _isn’t_ a known cape and part of an existing group. That’s not how it would actually _work_ , of course, but power manifestations are not legally enough to identify someone.”

You put a hand up to the side of your mask, “Gee, it’s like you have a lawyer on your team.” Laserdream’s answering smile is a bit wan, so you continue. “Anyhow, I won’t take any more of your time tonight. The feelers I have out for Merchant locations probably won’t bear fruit until at least tomorrow, maybe the day after. Once I do I’ll shoot you a text. If you’re willing, great.”

Laserdream is nodding along as you finish. “Sure. My brother would probably also be down; I’d have to discuss it with him first of course, but…” she shrugs like it’s not a big deal. 

There’s an awkward pause before you point off to the sky. “So are you gonna leave, or do I have to try and pull off a disappearing act too?”

That gets a grin as she leans forward and puts her elbows on her knees. “I gotta admit, I’m curious.”

You shoo Raven off into the sky and wait until you’re sure her attention is back on you. No reason to rely solely on misdirection. Bringing your hand up you snap your fingers and change into a small, dark-colored lizard and scurry beneath the metal shell of the air handler you’d been sitting on. 

A scuff of shoes on the roof then nothing for a moment while you make your way over the equipment and out the other side. The New Wave cape is hovering near where you were and waving a shielded hand. After a moment she speaks. “Yeah, he’s gone.”

Shielder descends out of the sky. “The bird flew off east. It was still going until I lost it in the dark.” He shrugs and bobs in the air, “He sounded hella chill for a new cape, y’know?”

“Yeah, and think about all the sneaking and stalking he did. He’s patient. That’s a good thing.” She sighs and they start lifting into the air. You shift into a bat and do your best to fly after them and catch the rest of the conversation. Unfortunately they’re just a bit faster than you so you only catch a final snippet. “…didn’t want to seem like a pushy bitch, but I hope this one doesn’t get caught by gangs…”

On that depressing note you land and text Raven that you’re clear, then meet up on a separate rooftop off-campus. You break for dinner then head over to the homeless camp. You’d discussed it with her ahead of time, but as she hasn’t decided on a name yet she’ll mostly stay in bird form while around people.

You end up having to hunt Slick down—he’s off in one of the nearby buildings. This is more of an office-type, with multiple floors of small rooms in a maze. Once you catch up with him and tour the place the skeleton of walls seems fine but some of the floors are starting to sag dangerously. 

Slick squints at your shoulder adornment for a minute. “That ain’t yer regular bird, is it?”

Smirking behind your mask you reach up and preen Raven’s feathers. “Nope. Haven’t decided on a name yet, was kinda thinking about ‘Morticia’.”

That gets a thoughtful look. “From that TV show? Addams Family?”

“Yeah, always had a thing for her, she had that goth style going on.”

The older man laughs and continues the tour. “I don’t wanna sound like I’m makin’ demands, but if you got control of the process, gettin’ rid of all of the broken desks and all would be a huge help.”

You shrug, “The more of an image I have in my mind, the more specific I can get. Let’s go back downstairs and I’ll give it a try.” You turn back and start off down the stairs. “How was the other building, by the way? Lilah said something about you sleeping there.”

Slick scratches a cheek as the two of you descend, “Everything seems perfectly fine with the place; hell, the wood’s just as tough as any of the concrete or stone and the vines are like steel cables. Honestly once I got used to seein’ green patches on the walls like paint ’n havin’ a leaf door the weirdest part is that it was warmer than I expected, ‘specially since we didn’t get the boiler workin’ ’til a couple of hours ago.”

“…I didn’t see any signs of weird fire-plants, so how was it warmer?”

“Oh, it wasn’t super warm, but the floor wasn’t cold concrete what with the moss ’n all. Without that suckin’ the heat from you when you’re sleepin’ on the ground it’s nicer. Was almost like it kept what heat I gave off in the room too. Pretty nice.”

As you turn in the atrium and look over the grayish-tan stones you hum tonelessly. “So if the boiler’s working, what about the electricity?”

Slick snorts. “ _That_ jes took an hour to get set up. Dwayne got a bunch of his people to run around and check it. Ain’t many overhead lights, so that’s somethin’ to try fixin if we c’n find scrap ones.” He nods his head into the gloom, “Same with this one. They’d been built before that was really a thing.”

The earth-reshaping ripple spreads out from under your feet once again. Slick handles it with barely a noise this time as wood once again erupts from multiple locations around the room. 

This building was in better condition, so the amount of _visible_ mending is much less, at least on the first floor. Once you venture back upstairs, though, the sagging third and fourth floors have been changed, now an interwoven mix of wood and stone. Again, the patches of moss, ivy, and similar clinging plants sprout from walls but there’s not as many. You touch one and concentrate, finding it a bit easier with the practice you’ve been getting. 

You’d concentrated more on the ideas of ‘clearing’ and ‘repairing’ and the results seem to reflect it. Once again wood has grown throughout the building but it is much more restrained in this case, remaining largely out of sight. The major exceptions to the outside appear to be sprays of plants from the decorative stonework along the top of the building. 

“No random springs this time, Slick, but you’re good to go.”

“I’ll get a coupla guys to check things over again, then we’ll see if we can get power back up here tonight.”

You make your way in to see Lilah and get no amazing news—nothing bad, but she doesn’t have any immediate insight into Jorge’s whereabouts. There are a couple of leads that you take, then you head off a bit south to let Raven shift back to human. 

When she does she stares at the transformed buildings and back at you. “What in the fuck, man.”

Pulling off your mask you give the girl a shrug. “I saved Slick from a beating by Merchants right as I got my powers and things just kinda... snowballed from there?”

“And now you’re a gang leader.”

You blow a derisive raspberry, “Hardly. I’m setting them up with shelter and food and letting them mostly handle themselves. I’m coming in and offering a bit of help here and there, but my rough plan is just to give them a chance to not suffer outside in the winter.”

Raven turns back to the camp and shakes her head, “I get what you’re _saying_ , but nobody—not the gangs, not the PRT, probably not New Wave—will see it that way.” Her shoulders slump and she curses, “Shit, the city’ll probably be pissed too. Considering how City Hall works they’ll mostly be mad because you're not paying taxes and bribes, but still.”

“I don’t think there’s enough cash laying around for us to take to pay for even _one_ of these buildings to try and make things legal, but considering they’ve been abandoned for years the city can kiss my ass. It’s not like they were getting any income from this dump in the first place,” you begin, sitting down next to her. “As for the rest of it? I mean, that’s part of the reason I’m pushing the Merchants out of the area. It’s far off enough—and not white enough—for the Empire to want to claim the area, and Lung seems content to sit on most of the southside and pick fights with E88 capes occasionally.”

“And the PRT?”

Sucking air in through your teeth you wince. “Got nothin’.”

The goth girl scoots over and rests her head on your shoulder. “Lung took the entire Protectorate on and scared them off back when he showed up but I don’t think we could do that quite yet. Plus Piggot’s not the kind to back down.”

Your eyebrows raise. “We?”

“Yeah, dude, ‘we’. I said I’d help.”

You wrap an arm around her and sit for a moment before she points south. “So, are we scouting?”

The two of you check out the areas Lilah had pointed out and are able to rule one out completely—there’s drug dealing going on in the area, but unless the Merchants have started segregating groups by race, this is probably an ABB joint. It’s odd that they’re this far north, but in truth you don’t know how diversified the gangs really are. 

Leaving that one out, the second lead isn’t a specific building so much as a general location. Once again it’s near a mostly-empty strip mall (but the again much of Brockton could be described as ‘near a rundown strip mall’). This time however it’s not the commercial area, but the neighborhood behind it. All of the houses—or at least the ones that aren’t boarded up—have Merchant colors or symbols and there’s a fair amount of foot traffic and dealer-looking people standing around. 

You and Raven split up and prowl around in various shapes to get a feel for the area. During the half-hour or so you spend wandering around you overhear multiple conversations about the infighting with Randy, but nothing concrete about Jorge’s location or what they’re actually going to do, other than ‘kick them redneck’s asses’. Raven comes back with pretty much the same information, although she nosed around a couple of houses and found some kind of drug-making operation. _Probably_ a meth lab, but damned if either of you know what that actually looks like. 

Both of you call it at that point, Raven heading to her dorm while you swing back long enough to inform Lilah of your own findings. When you return home and check on the brew you’d been making, it’s reduced down to almost nothing. You pour it off into yet another bottle, this time setting it so the light of the moon catches it before heading to bed.

Waking up back in your grove is... not unexpected in the slightest. The rain that nourished you so recently has stopped and the sky is clearing somewhat, although wisps of silvery fog hang in the air, dancing to the rhythms in the sky. Your memory tells you that the number and position of the stars that you can see peeking out have changed, but you’d be hard-pressed to point to any _exact_ changes.

Also not unexpected is the differences you see in the trees directly bordering the clearing—they’re much healthier and vibrant, with two having expanded in size dramatically. Placing hands on their trunks you’re given a hazy vision of how the trees are also the buildings you’ve restored, or at least a mental representation thereof. The most intriguing thing you sense only comes after you finish your sensing.

...small lights twinkling farther back in the gloom. Not like the light from the spirits of the Horde, but the soft bioluminescent light of fireflies. And then light from the fire catches on a spider’s web, glittering like silver. A single croak of a frog sounds out.

Sinking to your knees you push your senses out farther and feel the beginnings of life springing back around you. It’s not the same as real life—you don’t sense sacks of spider eggs or hibernating frogs. As you watch with your nature sense a second frog spontaneously generates from one of the restored trees a bit farther back. 

Centering yourself you push the idea of ‘bees’ into the web of life and power that you sense, just to see if anything will come of it. For what you believe to be a long few minutes nothing does... then drops of the fog condense into a bee; a queen. A few more follow after a short pause, her honor guard forming up around her as they head off to find a place to build a nest. 

You pat the trunk you’re leaning against and stand to take in the rest of your inner world. Looking over at the Beast, he’s sitting in his humanoid guise and _smirking_ at you. You’re almost tempted to break the silence that you’ve kept in this place to snark at him but instead just fill the bowl and breezily walk past him to settle down equidistant from the three parts of yourself.

Despite strengthening your bond with your primal side to make up for the kindling making sense, the power you’ve lost looks to be minimal. Likewise, ten summons and two familiars—even if the two aren’t generally in the same place for now—meet all the needs you’ve had for backup. 

Instead, the Tree whispers suggestions of easy movement and protection and _maybe_ a bit of calling down something like a biblical plague. It’s intriguing enough for you to sit and pour your offering around the base of the small tree and watch as it grows just a little taller and sends out another branch. The normally hushed voices get just a little louder as they impart three secrets to you. A smirk spreads on your face as you plan to test out the limits of all of them, but more specifically the _Stonemeld_ spell. You may have just found a way to render most brick, stone, or concrete buildings open to you. You make a mental note find a moment or two to yourself to test them out before you’re called on to use them in a combat scenario.

As you wake up you pluck the bottle of condensed plum essence from the window you’d left it in before the sun’s rays can touch it. It gets stashed in your fridge so it can sit in the dark for a while—your gut tells you it should be ready for the next step after one more night’s moonlight exposure. 

Classes are (once again) classes, with history having taken a nosedive recently. Allen’s turn to the depressed has sucked the energy he carried into the day out of things and made the class into a slog. You actually end up tuning him out for large portions while you check the various news sites for any interesting information.

The Shadow Stalker debacle has finally made the news, although you don’t know what’s actually come of it. A bland release from the Wards’ PR department that ‘Shadow Stalker will not be available for patrols due to familial obligations’ makes you snort then check the group text from Winslow. You’d muted it and generally don’t pay attention, but scrolling and searching back you can find Diego and a couple of others you vaguely remember talking about how a couple of those ‘stupid sophomore bitches’ stopped showing up to school. That would probably be Sophia and Emma, the murderous duo. You’re really curious what’s _actually_ happening, but short of maybe invading Sophia’s house you don’t really have a way to learn any more.

...that’s not strictly true. You sign on to PHO and do some likely searches to see if any rumors come up. A thread called ‘Who Youths the Guard’ about the Youth Guard has had a flurry of posts since last week talking about the amount of traffic the Protectorate and PRT buildings had gotten. There are a number of comments about how it has to be related to Stalker as far back as Thursday of last week, as well as people noticing that a Youth Guard car was seen at at Brockton PD headquarters, which is unusual. Nothing definitive, but you can’t find it to be anything but amazed that something might actually have been done.

You hang around with Jordyn and Sabah after their classes and do lunch, then get pulled in to the yoga class. It’s actually pretty fun; you _are_ the only guy and attract a number of curious stares which ends up with the soft and tiny Sabah putting herself in between you and the rest of the ladies. It’s like watching a kitten get their hackles up. The class itself is amusing; while you’re superhumanly strong and can hold all of the stressful poses without issue, the _stretching_ is a completely different story. You fight the desire to just shift into something more flexible in a number of cases and come out with some pleasant aches by the end of class. Jordyn has obviously done this before and seems energized, but Sabah is moving stiffly, so you let her lean against you as you take her back to their room.

You come across Raven in the hallway, who wiggles her eyebrows at you and whistles at Sabah’s workout gear, causing the Arab girl to blush mightily. It’s nowhere near as tight as Jordyn’s, but is the least-baggy stuff you’ve ever seen the girl wear. Despite being the shortest of the three girls, she’s far and away the most curvy.

Since you don’t have any hugely pressing issues you hang out with the roommates a bit more, just chatting and letting them comb and braid your hair. Both girls seem to enjoy it and you just let their conversation wash over you as you sit on their floor and lay your back against their legs.

As you go to leave later and get hugs, Jordyn holds on a bit and bats her blue eyes at you. “There’s gonna be a party Friday night—one of the frats is hosting. Like half of the girls on the hall are going and I’m trying to convince Sab to get all dressed up and go too. You in?”

You make a show of looking up at the ceiling and considering. “Maybe? I’m not scheduled to work but Fridays are pretty busy. Let me check and I’ll let you know.”

The blonde pushes you over to hug Sabah, then sandwiches the shorter girl between you. “If you can I’ll do my best to get her to wear some leggings and this top I have—like, it gives me major cleavage, can you imagine what it’ll do with—”

“Jor- _dyn_!”

Later in the evening Raven slips into your apartment and flops onto your couch, shifting into a large cat before changing back and pouting. “Laying around feels better as a cat, but I can’t _talk_ like that.”

“Poor baby...” You look up from making sure your rent’s been paid and you have money for groceries. Well, _official_ money for groceries, since the drug money is still under your bed. “I see you’re dressed up.”

Raven has indeed put together a costume, using the copy of the moss cloak you’d grown as a similar kind of shawl, but with a black leather sleeveless shirt and some kind of waist cape thing going on. You point to her torso. “How’d you get leather armor?”

“It’s pleather, Cheps. I, uh... may have LARPed a bit and had it still sitting around at my parents’ house.”

“Isn’t LARPing the pretend vampire stuff?” you ask, a smile spreading over your face. It gets a bit bigger when she ignores the question. You move over and get her to stand so you can look it over. “Pretty nice. I have buckskins for myself but they’re not just the kind of thing you can get off the rack. Hopefully they’ll be here by Monday.” You poke the silver-haired girl in the forehead and cock your head. “You also didn’t answer the vampire question.”

“And I’m not gonna.”

Sliding up behind her you lean forward to murmur in her ear. “Raven, did you enjoy sucking my blood?”

Out of the corner of your eye you can see her bite her lip as her entire body shivers and breaks out into goosebumps. She almost melts against you for just a second before stepping away and throwing herself on the couch to hide the flush of her cheeks.

“So! I’m still not sure about a name, but I’ve narrowed it down a bit. Maybe. “Tell me what you think about Melikki or Morrigan. Maybe Feronia. Hey, wha—”

Shaking your head you go sit back down at your computer and pull up a web browser. “They all sound cool, but I have _no_ idea what the names mean.”

“Does it matter? Just tell me how they sound.”

You flap your hand at her. “If you’re pressure me, then I’m going with Morticia instead.” Stopping to squint at her you shake your head and turn your head back to read. “Even if you’re more of a Wednesday.”

The silver haired girl puffs up and puts her hands on her hips. “Bitch, I will _end_ you!”

In the end it’s all just talk, though, and she slinks away and flops back on your couch as a cat and curls up to pout. Maybe five minutes later you scoop her up and scratch behind her ears. “Morrigan seems better—there’s the shapeshifting, but she’s a crow, not a raven, you know.”

Hopping away from you she shifts back and rolls her eyes at you. “Crows are just short ravens. Besides, even the Empire doesn’t pay attention to Irish myth, they’re all ‘Odin’ this and ‘Thor’ that.”

“Fair. Keep in mind you don’t need to finally decide until someone actually asks you your cape name, so just keep me informed if you end up switching it.”

After you offer your opinion you ask about this party that’s supposedly happening at the end of the week. “Is this frat a front for the Empire too? Maybe a branch of the Merchants?”

Raven giggles. “Probably not, it’s like the oldest frat on campus, so it’s probably just rich people. I figured we’d be busy so I didn’t say anything when the other girls were talking about it.”

“I don’t...” you pause and consider how to phrase things. “I don’t want being Manitou to be such a full-time thing I can’t also be a regular person. Unless like, Slick’s camp is on fire. That’s why Garm is there most of the time, so he can warn me if anything happens.”

“I wondered why he wasn’t here when Huginn seems to come and go as he pleases.”

You explain where he came from and how the rest of the experimented-on dogs acted, which leads into the fact that while the bonding process mellowed him out quite a bit, Garmir still prefers open spaces where he can bleed off excess energy by running around and being vigilant rather than staying cooped up in an apartment for long periods. “Anyhow, I’m fifty-fifty on going, but that’s because I’m not a big party person.”

“Psh, whatever. You know you wanna see us drunk and dirty dancing.” Raven does a little shimmy in place and winks.

“You and Jordyn? I could see that. Doubt Sabah would.”

The silver-haired girl leans her head off the edge of the couch. “She’s getting wilder all the time. Hell, she didn’t even blush much when Jordyn made a comment about how your ass looked good in yoga class.”

If the girl was expecting you to be embarrassed you do your best to disappoint her by pushing the blush down and standing up to smack your own cheeks a couple of times. “I mean, have you _seen_ my ass? Now c’mon and let’s see if Lilah has managed any additional information.”

She has, actually. Near the cul-de-sac from yesterday there’s apparently a ‘church’ operating. One of the tiny ones with a name like ‘So-and-so Ministries’ that do things like food drives and the like. Supposedly instead of being able to go and get one’s daily bread you get your fix. 

Lilah explains that it’s not Jorge’s main base—if the guy even has something like that—but that as a place that could excuse a fair amount of foot traffic it’s important in its own way. “Keep in mind that it’s only one over from Ridgeview Street, so all them people will hear if you make a lot of noise.”

Once again stymied by an inability to make faces with the mask, you gesture to yourself instead. “I’m only loud if I need to be.”

You and Raven are staking the building out from a rooftop of fast food place half a block away and watching a trickle of people wander in then leave via a back exit as you explain how you’d handled spying on Randy before. The two of you are debating the effects of staging an ‘attack’ on the place versus just spying more when your cape phone buzzes. 

Pulling it out you see it’s from Laserdream and has a link to a PHO thread with the comment ‘it’s closer to your area than mine’. Checking it out you see that Uber and Leet have staged one of their video game... things on the Boardwalk. At least you _assume_ it’s from a video game, because the pictures that are coming in show the gawky Leet dressed up as Harry Potter and using a wand to levitate people by their ankles and shake cash and wallets out. Maybe they’ve branched out into movies or books. 

You snort internally. Leet, reading a book? It’s probably based off of a video game.

What are either henchmen or robots dressed as full-size goblins collect the dropped loot as Uber (Ron Weasley) does likewise in the background while flying on a broom. The most recent picture is a badly-framed shot of a human-height spider trundling along with a stampede of people running away from it.

You show Raven and stop to think. Generally the streaming duo’s heists end with no major injuries aside from when Leet’s Tinker stuff self-destructs, but occasionally that’s not the case. The two of you are maybe three minutes away as the crow flies, and a quick skim of the thread shows the Protectorate is supposedly tracking down Lung sightings halfway across the city as the ABB leader continues his hunt for Skidmark. It’s possible that the Wards might show up, but otherwise they’re going to get away clean unless you do something.


End file.
